Chuck vs the Con
by Notorious JMG
Summary: When two women claiming to be Sarah's sisters show up at the Buy More, Sarah has to watch unwillingly as her old life gets hung out to dry. But when it becomes a matter of national security, all bets are off. Follows 2x05, "Chuck vs Tom Sawyer."
1. Sisterhood

_**CHUCK VERSUS THE CON**_

**Chapter 1: "Sisterhood"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):  
**Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Jill Roberts – Jordana Brewster  
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer  
Emmett Milbarge – Tony Hale  
Karen Burton – Jennifer Morrison  
Elizabeth Burton – Kate Winslet  
Sarah Walker/Jenny Burton – Yvonne Strahovski

_**Author's Note:**__ This story takes place after the events of episode 2x05, "Chuck vs. Tom Sawyer". In this divergence, the events of episode 2x06, "Chuck vs. the Ex", do not exactly happen as they did on the show; however, there are some similarities._

* * *

**Palo Alto, California  
December 1999**

"I am NOT getting out of the van!" Chuck Bartowski snapped.

His best friend, Bryce Larkin, and his girlfriend, Jill Roberts, both turned back to him, pleading looks on their faces. "Chuck, come on!" Jill begged.

"It's friggin' freezing out there!" Chuck shot back. "Do I look like I've lost my mind?"

Bryce grinned. "Honestly?"

"Ha freaking ha, Bryce," Chuck growled. "Whose idea was it again for us to go Christmas caroling dressed like Robin Hood, Little John, and Maid Marion?"

"That would be mine!" Bryce replied proudly. "I also seem to remember offering you the Little John outfit when you complained about how showy the Robin Hood outfit was, and yet for some inexplicable reason, you declined."

Chuck turned a dirty look on Jill, who giggled. "I LIKE the way you look in the Robin Hood outfit, Chuck," she said. "It shows off… parts of you that I like."

A warm feeling overtook Chuck as he blushed to the roots of his hair. "Come ON, Chuck!" Bryce said. "Time's a-wastin'!"

With a wordless growl, Chuck vaulted himself out of Bryce's Dodge Caravan, sliding the door shut behind him as he went. "If I get hypothermia…"

"I'll warm you up if you do, Chuck," Jill promised, looping her arm through his. "Now let's go sing."

The three walked up to the front door of a house. Jill pressed the doorbell, and as soon as the door opened, they began to sing.

"_On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… a partridge in a pear tree!_"

"_On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…_"

"Bartowski…"

"_Two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree!_"

"Bartowski!"

"_On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…_"

"BARTOWSKI!"

* * *

**Burbank, California  
November 2008**

Emmett Debarge suddenly appeared in Chuck's field of vision, causing him to drop the stuffed animal that was playing _The Twelve Days of Christmas_. "Bartowski!" the Buy More efficiency expert snapped. "I don't believe you're being paid to daydream on the job!"

Chuck shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. "No, sir, of course not, Emmett," he replied distractedly. "Uh, my apologies."

Emmett cast a dirty look at Chuck, but didn't say anything further. As he walked away, Chuck sighed.

It had been six days since he had saved the world by playing Missile Command. It was ridiculous enough that Chuck couldn't actually believe it had happened. However, _Geek_ magazine had confirmed that it really had happened by asking him for an interview.

Six days since he had saved the world by playing Missile Command. Fourteen days since he had saved the world by helping to take out a couple of Russian goons at Sarah's high school reunion. Twenty days since he had saved the world by helping recapture the Cipher.

Twenty days since he had maybe saved the world by telling Sarah that there couldn't be anything between them.

"What WAS I thinking?" Chuck mumbled to himself.

He was getting sick and tired of saving the world. He had mistakenly said something to that effect to Casey the night before.

Chuck had been tired. He couldn't help what he was saying. But it had really ticked off Casey, who was still annoyed that John McCain had lost the night before THAT. Casey had ended up going off on a fifteen minute rant about how if Chuck was tired of trying to save the world, maybe he could get his good buddy, "Comrade Barack", to save it for him.

Under other circumstances, Chuck probably would've lit into Casey for that remark. But that particular night, Chuck recognized that perhaps the better part of valor would be to let it go.

And now Chuck was stuck, yet again, at his twelve-dollar-and-fifty-cent-an-hour job, seeing no forward potential, unable to go anywhere as long as he was under the thumb of the damn Intersect. "Ye gods," he grumbled as he looked at the television wall, seeing yet another story about Barack Obama.

It wasn't that Chuck was unhappy about Obama being elected – it was just that he was sick of seeing the coverage. It seemed like every other time he saw Obama or McCain on television, it provoked a flash, and flashes generally led to headaches.

Chuck was getting pretty damn sick of headaches in the name of national security. As such, he deliberately looked away from the wall, hoping that if he couldn't see Senator Obama, he wouldn't flash on anything.

As Chuck deliberately ignored the wall, he scanned the rest of the store. None of the employees he was used to working with were there. Not Morgan, not Lester, not Jeff, not Anna, not even Casey. Emmett had decided that Chuck was responsible for everything that was wrong with the Buy More, and so was trying to make Chuck's life miserable.

Chuck was pretty sure that Emmett was trying to make him quit. There was no possible way that he was going to give Emmett the satisfaction.

Chuck didn't even have Sarah walking in the door to look forward to. Ever since their conversation in the courtyard outside Ellie's apartment, she seemed to have been avoiding him. He had tried to talk to her about it a couple of times, but each time, she managed to artfully dodge the topic and move on to something else.

However, just as Chuck was ready to resign himself to a boring shift of epic proportions, the doors at the front of the store swished open. Two blonde women walked through the doors – two blonde women who bore more than a passing resemblance to a certain CIA agent who Chuck happened to be acquainted with.

As the women made a beeline toward the Nerd Herd counter, Chuck quickly studied them. The one on the left looked to be around thirty, maybe two inches shorter than Sarah, but definitely the same blonde hair, the same blue eyes. The one on the right looked a couple of years older, an inch or so shorter than the one on the left, but again, with the same hair and eyes.

"Good morning," he greeted them as they stepped up to the Nerd Herd counter. "Welcome to Buy More – Burbank. How can I be of assistance to you?"

"Well, this might sound a little weird," the one on the left said, "but we're actually looking for our sister. We heard that she worked somewhere in this shopping center, and thought that maybe you could tell us where she is."

Chuck's eyes widened slightly. "R-really," he stammered. "Um, what's her name?"

"Her name is Jenny Burton," the one on the right replied. "She looks a lot like us, except a couple inches taller, and a couple years younger. I'm her sister, Liz, and this is her other sister, Karen."

Chuck squinted at the two women, but much to his surprise, didn't flash. However, the fact that these two women were standing in front of him using Sarah's real name was cause for a great deal of alarm. "Uh… you know… I'm sorry, but I don't know a Jenny Burton," he said, his voice shaking.

Karen Burton cocked her head to the side. "Are you sure?" she asked. "About five-nine, platinum blonde hair, ice blue eyes?" She smiled. "Big boobs?"

Chuck didn't realize he had been holding his breath as Karen spoke, and nearly choked when she said "Big boobs". "Mphfth," Chuck spluttered, coughing. The two women backed away as Chuck shook his head and tried to catch his breath.

Finally, he looked up at them. "I'm really sorry," he said. "I don't know that person."

Liz Burton shrugged. "Alright, well, we'll keep asking," she replied. "Thanks… what's your name?"

"Chu… uh, Charles Carmichael," Chuck said. The fewer people from Sarah's "real" life knew his actually identity, the better.

"Well, Charles, thank you for your help," Karen said. "And remember, blonde hair, blue eyes, big boobs."

Chuck managed to keep his composure this time, and angrily chastised himself as the two women walked away. Why the hell did he have such a hard time thinking about Sarah having… well… it's not like it was untrue!

He shook his head. He thought of Sarah as a whole person. The individual parts didn't matter.

The two women headed toward the customer service desk, where they would undoubtedly get a very different answer from the kid on duty if they provided the same description to him that they had to Chuck. As quietly as he could, Chuck slipped out of the counter and headed toward the front door.

About ten feet before he was out the door, he realized something. Pulling his iPhone from his pocket, he activated the camera, and aimed it at the two women, who both had their bodies turned slightly toward him.

Pressing the button, he took a picture – okay, that would do at least for Sarah, and maybe even General Beckman if necessary. Saving the picture, he slipped the phone back in his pocket and headed for the door –

"Going somewhere, Chuck?"

Chuck groaned inwardly and tried not to roll his eyes as he was intercepted by Emmett. "Yeah, uh, I've got a thing," Chuck answered lamely.

Emmett raised an eyebrow. "You seem to have a lot of 'things', Chuck."

"It's, uh, yeah," Chuck replied. "My girlfriend, she, uh, she has a spastic colon, and, uh…"

At the words "spastic colon", Emmett's face took on a look of disgust. "There's such a thing as too much information, Chuck," the dour little man said. "Go take care of whatever it is you have to do."

Chuck nodded and headed for the door. "Oh, and Chuck?"

Taking a deep breath, Chuck turned back toward Emmett. "No more pictures of the pretty female customers."

Shaking his head, Chuck bolted out the door, heading down the sidewalk toward the Orange Orange. Two minutes later, he stood inside the frozen yogurt shop, waiting for the customer ahead of him to finish his order.

Sarah gave him a curious look and raised an eyebrow as he came in the door, but he just shook his head, pointing to the customer. She nodded her understanding.

Finally, the customer walked out the door. "Big, BIG problem," Chuck said.

"Well, hello, Chuck," Sarah replied sarcastically. "I'm having a great day. Thanks for asking."

That response stopped Chuck short. "What?"

"Are you purposefully ignoring me?" Sarah asked. "I mean, ever since we came back from San Diego, it's like I'm a total stranger."

"Uh, no… what?!"

Sarah shook her head. "Just forget it. Obviously, you have something more important to tell me. What did you flash on?"

Chuck just stared at Sarah, a look of disbelief on his face. "I didn't flash on anything… what the HELL are you talking about?!"

Sarah folded her arms across her chest. "You want to talk about this now?"

"It would help if I knew what we were talking about!"

"Fine," Sarah said. "I'll break it down for you. I know it's not easy for you to still be around me when you've decided there can't be anything between us. And you know, after that really nice time we spent hanging out when we came back from San Diego, I thought maybe, just maybe, you were going to be okay just being my friend. But ever since then, it's like I don't exist or something."

Chuck raised an eyebrow. "Oooookay," he said slowly. "I don't even know where to start responding to that." He pulled his iPhone out of his pocket. "But right now, I don't have the time. We have a VERY serious problem."

Sarah cocked her head. "I thought you said you didn't flash on anything."

"I didn't," Chuck confirmed, shaking his head, and handing her the iPhone. "However, these two women, who identified themselves as Liz and Karen Burton, came into the Buy More a few minutes ago, in search of Jenny Burton."

Sarah's eyes widened and her face went pale as she looked at the picture. "Uh-oh," she said softly.

"Uh-oh?!" Chuck asked. "I don't like uh-oh, Sarah!"

Sarah looked up at him, her eyes guarded. "Chuck…" She stopped and sighed. "This might be a problem."

_END SCENE_


	2. He's Baaack

_**CHUCK VERSUS THE CON**_

**Chapter 2: "He's Baaack"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):  
**Sarah Walker/Jenny Burton – Yvonne Strahovski  
Tony Todd – CIA Director Arthur Graham  
Elizabeth Burton – Kate Winslet  
Karen Burton – Jennifer Morrison  
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi

* * *

**Washington, DC  
May 2004**

Sarah Walker stuck her head in the door of Director Graham's office. "I was told you wanted to see me, sir?"

Graham nodded. "Come on in, Walker. Shut the door."

Sarah stepped into the office, letting the door swing shut behind her. Graham picked up a remote control from his desk, and then motioned toward a chair with it. "Take a seat."

Doing as she was told, Sarah looked over at Graham. "What's this about?"

He didn't say anything, simply pointing the remote at a television and turning it on. An image of a hotel room appeared on screen. The logos on items around the room indicated to Sarah that the room was at the Bellagio, in Las Vegas.

After a moment, two women appeared in the picture, a man between them. The man's back was turned to Sarah, but it was quite clear who the women were. "No way," she whispered as she recognized her two sisters.

Sarah watched in horrified fascination as her sisters performed a simultaneous striptease in front of the man they had brought in with them, who had since sat down in a recliner. He seemed to be enjoying the show, although Sarah could not see his face.

Once naked, her sisters retreated to the bed, and made "come hither" hand motions to the man in the recliner. He stood and stretched, and then, beginning to loosen his tie, turned around toward the camera –

Sarah rocketed out of her chair. "MOTHERFUCKER!"

* * *

**Georgetown**

Sarah marched up the steps of the old brownstone with all the forward momentum of an angry rhinoceros. Her face was red and her gun was in her left hand.

She had covered the distance between Langley and Georgetown in record time, and now, somebody was going to pay the price. Reaching the top of the steps, she raised her right hand, balling it into a fist and pounding it against the door.

_BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM_

No response. She tried again, this time, holding her finger down on the doorbell as well. After a moment, she backed away from the door.

Looking up toward the second floor, she aimed her gun at the bedroom window. She pulled the trigger, and a split second later, the window exploded into shards of shattered glass. "GET DOWN HERE, YOU DICKLESS WONDER!" she bellowed.

As she marched back up the steps again, the door flew open. "What the hell is goin-"

Bryce Larkin never finished his sentence, as Sarah hauled off and slapped him across the face as hard as she could. Holding his jaw, Bryce staggered backward into the entryway of his house, and Sarah followed him in, slamming the door shut behind him.

"So, how was VEGAS, Bryce?!" Sarah snarled. "You have a good time?!"

Bryce's face turned white and his eyes went wide. "Oh, shit," he whispered.

"Yeah, oh SHIT is right!" Sarah snapped. "Guess what, Bryce, when you're a federal agent, what happens in Vegas doesn't necessarily STAY there!"

Bryce held up his hands. "Sarah, listen, I can explain –"

"Oh, there IS no explanation for this one."

"Yes, there really is!" Bryce insisted. "Listen, they had information about Al Qaeda that they were willing to sell me… things just got a little out of –"

"They had no information about Al Qaeda," Sarah said condescendingly. "Believe me – Liz and Karen Burton are just a couple of con artists."

Bryce looked at Sarah, confused. "How do you know that?" he asked. "And how do you know them?!"

Sarah's shoulders sagged. "Because, Bryce, I'm their baby sister."

* * *

**Burbank, CA  
November 2008**

Sarah's eyes widened. "Uh-oh," she muttered.

Chuck shook his head. "Uh-oh?" he replied. "I don't LIKE uh-oh, Sarah!"

Sarah sighed as she looked up at Chuck. There was a guarded look on her face. "Chuck, this might be a problem."

Chuck opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by the sound of the door chime. He turned toward the door –

"I thought you didn't know our sister!" Liz Burton said, a suspicious look immediately plastering itself on her face.

"Uh, this is, uh, this is your sister?" Chuck stammered, turning to look at Sarah. Sarah's face turned to a cold, emotionless mask.

"Yep," Liz replied, her voice taking on a sarcastic tone. "This is our baby sister, alright, little Jenny."

Karen Burton looked at Chuck curiously. "What name do you know her by, Mr. Carmichael?"

A ghost of a smile crossed Sarah's lips upon hearing that name. "Uh, I know her as Sarah Walker," Chuck replied nervously.

"Sarah Walker, huh?" Karen said, turning to look at her sister. "So, what's the game this time, sis? Deep pockets? Rich relatives? Or does he just have a really big –"

"THERE IS NO GAME," Sarah spat, cutting her sister off. "Has it perhaps not occurred to you that I don't necessarily like being associated with the Burton family? That maybe I wanted a fresh start, and going by a different name was a good way to do that?"

Liz shook her head. "What does it matter, Jenny? I mean, you are who you are, and the only reason I can see for going by a different name other than a con –"

Sarah's oldest sister stopped, her mouth falling open. "OH MY GOD," she gasped, an incredulous smile appearing on her lips. "Oh, this is TOO good. Please, please tell me you fell in love, Jennifer. Please tell me that that's why you changed your ways."

"I didn't fall in love," Sarah snapped. "I just – I wanted my life to be different. That's it."

Chuck's face fell a little at those words. "Well, if you're not in love, I'll happily take him," Karen said, a dangerous tone to her voice. "He may not be the looker that that Larkin boy was, but judging by his feet and hands, I'm betting that he's pretty well–"

"Nobody is taking Chuck," Sarah growled, a dangerous gleam appearing in her eyes. "Do I make myself clear?"

"Chuck?" Liz asked. "He told us his name was Charles."

"Which Chuck is a nickname for!" Chuck replied, speaking a little too quickly. "Come on, we all have nicknames. I bet Liz is short for Elizabeth, right?"

Liz looked at Chuck for a moment, and then back to Sarah. "Sis, we need to do dinner tonight."

Sarah shook her head. "Chuck and I have plans."

Chuck turned to Sarah, a curious look on his face. _We do?_ he mouthed.

Sarah nodded slightly. Liz shrugged. "So bring Chuck with you," she replied. "Come on, it isn't anything you can't move around is it?"

"No," Sarah grudgingly ground out.

"Great!" Liz said. "Water Grill, 7:30. You know where that's at?"

"Grand and Fifth, right?" Chuck asked.

Karen raised an eyebrow. "You knew that off the top of your head?"

Chuck shrugged. "I know lots off the top of my head."

Karen smiled deviously. "I bet you do, Mr. Carmichael. But I bet I could… teach you… some more."

Chuck's eyes widened. He wasn't exactly sure how to feel about being blatantly flirted with by Sarah's older sister.

"Right at the moment, it's time for you two to GO," Sarah said, her left hand starting to drift behind her back as she came out from behind the counter. Chuck reached out and gently took hold of her hand before it could reach the hilt of the throwing knife she kept in her waistband.

"Awww, they're holding hands," Karen mock sighed. "Isn't it cute, sis?"

"Get OUT!" Sarah snapped.

"7:30, Jennifer," Liz said on her way out the door. Karen turned and blew a kiss at Chuck, who winced.

Chuck kept hold of Sarah's hand until well after the two women were out of sight. "Thank you," she said quietly. "I'm not sure if the CIA would've been able to get me off of a double homicide."

"You could plead temporary insanity," Chuck offered. "They are your sisters, after all."

"Very true," Sarah replied with a small smile. "They're also the last people I wanted you to meet."

Chuck cocked his head to the side. "Why's that?"

Sarah sighed. "You know how Karen mentioned Bryce?"

"Yeah," Chuck replied with a nod. "And?"

"They both know him."

Chuck shrugged. "Okay, you DID date him for, what, five years? It makes sense that they would've met him at SOME point."

Sarah looked at Chuck, then at the ceiling, then back to Chuck. "They know him… uh… in the Biblical sense."

Chuck narrowed his eyes, not understanding for a moment, and then –

"Ohhhh," Chuck breathed. "Oh, that's awkward." Then he looked at Sarah curiously. "How'd that happen?"

Sarah's eyes turned to slits. "I don't want to talk about it."

* * *

**Downtown Los Angeles**

Dinner was awkward, at best. Chuck tried to make polite conversation with Sarah's sisters, but Liz didn't seem interested in talking to him, and Karen only seemed interested in getting into Chuck's pants. "She's like Carina on steroids," Chuck muttered to Sarah when Karen was occupied with the waiter.

Despite the annoyance, Sarah had to stifle a laugh at Chuck's comment. She couldn't deny that it was an apt comparison.

About an hour after they arrived, Sarah saw Chuck fiddling with something below the table, but couldn't tell what he was doing until his phone started ringing. "Oh!" he said, feigning surprise. "Sorry, I should take this."

Standing up from the table, he disappeared like the Cheshire Cat, leaving Sarah to talk to her sisters. "Alright," she said, as soon as Chuck was out of earshot. "What's going on?"

Liz looked Sarah in the eyes. "Dad's getting out, Jen."

Sarah cocked her head. "Really."

"Really."

"Funny, I hadn't heard anything about it."

Liz shook her head. "Maybe that's because you stopped writing him seven years ago."

Sarah's lips pressed into a thin, tight line. "Maybe I would've been more willing to communicate with him if he wasn't a professional con man."

"Oh, come ON, Sarah," Karen shot back, a tone of disbelief in her voice. "We all grew up pulling cons with Dad, and I guarantee you that if he hadn't gotten busted your junior year, you would've followed me and Liz right into the family business."

"Family business meaning pulling cons, right?"

"Well, duh," Karen replied sarcastically. "What, you didn't think I meant Uncle Lou, did you?"

Sarah shrugged. "I can never tell with you. So, I'm assuming Dad wants to see us, then?"

"Yeah," Liz said. "He's at the pen in Florence, and he wants us to meet him in Tempe."

"Oh, PLEASE," Sarah groaned. "Dad wants us to meet him in east Phoenix? Good Lord. That just screams OUT that he's pulling another job, and not only is he pulling another job, he's pulling it with Uncle Lou!"

Liz raised an eyebrow. "So?"

Sarah looked at her oldest sister in disbelief. "Liz, have you forgotten that Uncle Lou used to work directly for John Gotti?! I mean, for God's sake, he's why the Gambinos OWN half of Phoenix! If we do ANYTHING with him, we're done! It's life in a federal penitentiary!"

"If we get caught."

Sarah just shook her head.

* * *

**Echo Park**

"Well, that was… fun…" Chuck smiled weakly at Sarah.

Sarah laughed bitterly. "I am so sorry you had to meet those two, Chuck," she sighed. "I would've been perfectly happy with you never knowing about them."

Chuck looked at Sarah thoughtfully for a moment. "Is this why you didn't want me to know about your past, Sarah?" he asked quietly. "You didn't want me to know what kind of life your family led?"

Sarah nodded. "Yeah," she muttered. "I just… I thought if you knew about the Burtons and the crap they pulled, you'd think less of me."

She looked up with a rueful smile. "That, and the CIA discourages agents telling others about their past."

Chuck nodded slowly. "Well, I understand the second part, but Sarah, I don't care what happened in your past. So your dad is a con artist. So you helped him out a couple times." Chuck smiled. "I just don't care. You're Sarah Walker, and as far as I'm concerned, that's all that matters."

Sarah's smile slowly softened and spread across her face. "Thank you, Chuck."

Chuck smiled back. "So, we're gonna have to go pull a con, aren't we?"

Sarah sighed. "Well, I imagine you're probably going to flash on my uncle's name as soon as I say it, and I guarantee you General Beckman's going to want us to be in on the job."

Chuck rolled his eyes. "A flash," he said dryly. "Oh, joy." He closed his eyes. "What's his name?"

"Luigi Silvestri."

Immediately, Chuck's mind was assaulted by a series of images. Caches of machine guns. Laundered twenty dollar bills. A bullet-riddled house in Brooklyn. Three men standing together – John Gotti, Sammy Gravano, Luigi Silvestri, a.k.a. Louie Silver. A dossier. A satellite shot of a house in east Phoenix. A plate of Christmas cookies.

Chuck's eyes snapped open and he shook his head. "Your uncle is LOUIE SILVER?!"

Sarah grimaced. "Told you."

Chuck laughed in disbelief. "We're gonna get ourselves killed."


	3. Death and Freedom

_**CHUCK VERSUS THE CON**_

**Chapter 3: "Death and Freedom"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Mikayla Burton – Chloë Sevigny  
young Jenny Burton – Abigail Breslin  
young Karen Burton – Dakota Fanning  
young Elizabeth Burton – Miley Cyrus  
Mark Casey/John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Dianne Beckman – Bonita Fredericy  
Arthur Graham – Tony Todd  
Jason K. Burton – Gary Cole  
Elizabeth Burton – Kate Winslet  
Karen Burton – Jennifer Morrison  
Sarah Walker/Jenny Burton – Yvonne Strahovski  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi

* * *

**Pomona, New Jersey  
April 1992**

Mikayla Silvestri Burton was the very image of the suburban American soccer mom. Adopted by a wealthy Manhattan Italian couple in 1959 when she was three years old, she had grown up with a life of privilege, eventually going to Cornell, where she met and fell in love with – and very quickly got pregnant by – a young man named Jason Burton.

Jason was a good man, but he had a weakness for gambling, which was only exacerbated by living so close to Atlantic City. Fortunately – or perhaps unfortunately – Mikayla's oldest brother, born fifteen years before she was, was Louis Silvestri, a powerful member of the Gambino crime syndicate, who had become a made man when he was not even thirty years old.

Mikayla's brother made sure that Jason was allowed to satisfy his gambling addiction without getting into any trouble with the casinos, but in exchange, Jason had to do quite a bit of questionable work for Louie Silver and his friends. Much to Mikayla's horror, he turned out to be very good at it.

Mikayla had been able to – for the most part – shield their three daughters from the insanity, but when she had gotten a call at 1:00 in the morning from her husband, telling her to get the kids in the van and get the hell out of town, she knew that the shield had just crumbled.

And so it was that she came to be headed westbound on the Atlantic City Expressway in the middle of the night, her three year old Plymouth Grand Voyager making tracks toward Philadelphia well above the speed limit. She was frightened, and she didn't even know why.

She knew it wasn't the Mob. No matter how mad Jason might have made them, there was no possible way that Louie would ever let them touch her or her daughters. Louie's protectiveness of his baby sister and his three nieces somewhat approximated a mother grizzly bear watching over her cubs.

Mikayla was so preoccupied that she didn't realize there was a state trooper behind her, lights on, until Liz spoke up. "Mom, there's a cop behind us."

"Oh, shit," Mikayla breathed, looking at the speedometer. It read just a hair below 90, and in a 65 MPH zone, that was a felony offense.

Taking her foot off the gas, Mikayla maneuvered toward the shoulder, slowing the van to a stop on the side of the road. The Chevrolet Caprice with New Jersey Highway Patrol markings stopped behind the van, lights still on.

"Karen, can you get me the registration out of the glovebox?" Mikayla asked, her voice shaking as she reached into her purse for her license. This was absolutely the worst time she could've picked to get pulled over.

She rolled down the window as the officer approached, letting the cool night air into the van. "Good morning, ma'am," the officer said curtly. One of the strobes on his car reflected off of his namebadge. _CASEY_, it read.

"I'm sorry, officer," Mikayla said quietly. "I had no idea I was going so fast. I've never gotten so much as a parking ticket before –"

The state trooper sighed. "Ma'am, I need to ask you to step out of the car. Bring your license and registration with you."

Hands shaking, Mikayla unfastened her seatbelt and opened the driver's door of the Plymouth minivan. She followed the officer back toward the cruiser. "I need you to stand by the car and place your hands on the hood, ma'am," he instructed her.

She didn't say anything, but just nodded, handed him the license and registration, and placed her hands on the hood. Looking at her license, he grunted, and reached inside the car for his radio. "This is seven-forty-two," he said into the microphone. "I need a ten-twenty-seven on… Mikayla Burton, of Pomona, license number K4739…"

He was cut off by the sound of tires squealing as a black Ford panel van screeched to a halt on the expressway, the side door flying open as it did so. "_Tebe pizd'ets, shluha vokzal'naja_!" a Russian-accented voice screamed from within –

And then the sound of automatic weapons fire filled the air. Mikayla watched in horror as Officer Casey's body jerked several times before collapsing onto the pavement – and then felt something slam into her own back.

Her strength almost immediately left her, and as she collapsed to the pavement, she was vaguely aware of the black van speeding away down the road…

* * *

"MOM!" Liz Burton screamed as she watched her mother fall to the pavement, leaving a red smear on the fender of the police car.

"GET DOWN, LIZ!" Jenny screamed, pulling her oldest sister to the floor of the minivan, as Karen dove to the floor in front of the shotgun seat. The interior of the minivan was filled with the sound of the three girls' panicked breathing, but they clearly heard the squeal of tires as the attackers' van sped away down the road.

Jenny started counting as soon as she heard the van speed away, and as soon as she reached one hundred, she cautiously poked her head up and looked out the window. There was nothing – the freeway was all but abandoned at this time of the morning.

Moving quickly, Jenny – the only one of the three girls who had ever done well in Girl Scouts – wrenched open the door of the minivan. "Come on!" she yelled at her sisters as she jumped out and started running toward her mother.

Mikayla Burton was bleeding badly, but Jenny was able to find a weak pulse on her mother's neck. "LIZ!" she yelled at her sister. "Get something like a blanket! Mom's bleeding, and I need you to put pressure on it!"

Numbly, Liz Burton nodded, turning back toward the van to retrieve a blanket. Meanwhile, Jenny moved over to the body of the fallen officer. He had no pulse.

Biting her lip and trying to hold back the bile that was building in her throat, Jenny yanked open the door of the cop car. "_Unit 742, respond!_" she heard coming anxiously from the radio.

Picking up the microphone, she depressed the talk button. "Please help," she said, noting with annoyance that her voice cracked as she did so. "I'm at milepost four on the Atlantic City Expressway, and my mom and an officer… uh… Officer Casey have been shot."

She released the button, and immediately, there was a flurry of activity over the radio. "_ALL UNITS, THERE IS A TEN-DOUBLE ZERO AND A POSSIBLE TEN-FOUR-SEVEN AT MILEPOST FOUR OF THE ATLANTIC CITY EXPRESSWAY! ALL UNITS CONVERGE ON LOCATION!_"

* * *

**King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia**

Air Force MP Lieutenant John Casey was in the fourth hour of an eight hour patrol when he got a call over the radio in his Hummer telling him to report in immediately. A concerned look on his face, he wheeled the big AM General-built vehicle around and headed back toward his base.

The look on Lieutenant Colonel Beckman's face when he entered the building was not encouraging. She always looked rather stern, having gone out of her way to appear as non-feminine as possible and so not risk offending the Saudi military officers on the base. However, right at the moment, she looked utterly stricken.

"Come into my office, John," she said quietly.

_John_. Not _Lieutenant_. Casey immediately began feeling a lump in his stomach. This couldn't possibly be good.

A tall black man stood as Casey entered Beckman's office. "Lieutenant Casey?" he asked, his deep voice rumbling through to Casey's soul.

"Yes, sir," Casey replied.

"Arthur Graham. I'm from the Embassy in Riyadh. I'm afraid I have some bad news."

Casey braced himself. "Yes, sir?"

Graham sighed. "Your brother, Mark, was shot and killed in the line of duty about twelve hours ago. He was making a routine traffic stop on the Atlantic City Expressway, but apparently, the individual he stopped was the wife of an individual who had severely angered the Russian Mafia. It appears that as he was calling her license in, both your brother and the woman were fired on by Mafioso. He died at the scene, she died about three hours later."

Casey's face froze. His brother – his twin brother – was dead? Surely that wasn't possible. It had to be a mistake.

But the looks on Graham and Beckman's faces told him otherwise.

"I understand," he said softly, his voice emotionless. "Thank you."

* * *

**Florence, Arizona  
November 2008**

"INMATE NUMBER TWO TWO NINE EIGHT NINE SIX!"

Jason Burton stepped out of line, a small smile on his face. Eleven long years he had been penned up here, at the Arizona State Penitentiary in Florence. Eleven years since the ATF and the CIA had "rescued" him from his dealings with the Russian Mafia and put him in "protective" custody.

Jason snorted. If only they knew. He was NEVER in danger from the Russian Mob – not when he had the original recipe Italian version at his back.

If only that protection had extended to his wife. Sixteen and a half years since the night he had ordered her to take the girls and run. Sixteen and a half years since the night that Mikayla and some unfortunate Jersey cop had borne the brunt of the wrath of the Russian Mafia.

And as much as that night was burned into Jason's brain, the one image that would never leave his mind was the sight of Louis Silvestri collapsing to the carpet of his Brighton Beach condo, a wordless shriek of grief and rage emanating from his mouth. The death of his baby sister had sent Louie Silver into a month of near reclusiveness, followed by a spree of death and destruction against the Russian Mob that had ended only because Louie was forced into the Witness Protection Program.

The processing agent handed Jason a small bag. It contained everything he had had on him when he was originally arrested – an Oakland Raiders t-shirt, a pair of jeans, the Air Jordans that he had been wearing at the time, a wallet with a long-expired California driver's license and twenty dollars cash – which he was QUITE surprised to see still in the wallet – and the gold Rolex that Louie Silver had given him when he and Mikayla got married in January of 1976 – when she was five months pregnant with Elizabeth.

Jason ducked into a restroom and changed, coming back out to turn his prison-issue uniform over. "Good luck, Mr. Burton," the processing agent told him.

"Yeah," Jason grunted. "You know where I can catch a bus up to the Tempe area?"

"Sure," the agent replied. "Just head out to Pinal Parkway here, take a left, go down to Butte Avenue, and take a right. There's a Circle K at Butte and Main; Greyhound comes by twice a day that'll drop you off near Arizona State."

"Thanks."

It took Jason fifteen minutes to walk to the Circle K, where the cashier told him that it would probably be three or four hours till the bus came along. Jason bought a USA Today and a bottle of water, then walked across Main Street to wait in the shade of the main library.

_PAULSON: BAILOUT OK AS IS_, the headline on the front of the newspaper blared. "Unbelievable," Jason muttered. The crimes some of those Wall Street executives had committed made Jason's life look like preschool, and yet, would they see a day in the big house?

"Not a chance," he grumbled to himself.

The bus finally came along, much to Jason's relief. He paid his fare, and then boarded. The bus headed north until it reached Queen Creek, where the Pinal Parkway joined up with US 60. It then headed westbound, toward Phoenix, stopping in Tempe on University Drive by the Arizona State campus.

Jason was now back in at least semi-familiar territory. He flagged down a cab and climbed in the back seat. "I need to get to 1264 North Kyrene Road," he told the cab driver. "I'll have to have my brother-in-law pay you when we get there, though."

"1264 Kyrene?" the driver asked. "That's that big-ass house down near Chandler that sold for, what, seven million a couple years back?"

Jason shrugged. "I think we're talking about the same place, yes."

The driver smiled. "Alright, then," he said. "You're goin' to that place, I'm pretty sure you're good for it."

The drive took another fifteen minutes, but as the massive property in south Tempe came into a view, a full-blown smile broke out on Jason's face. As the cab pulled onto the property and headed up the driveway, Jason saw Louie standing out front wanting for him.

"Jason, my brother!" Louie called out as Jason got out of the cab. "How much do you owe the cab driver?"

Jason looked inside the cab. "Fifteen bucks," the driver said.

Louie smiled and pulled out his wallet. Withdrawing a fifty dollar bill, he leaned into the cab. "Here you go, my good man," he said. "Keep the change."

"With pleasure," the cab driver replied, smiling.

Jason looked around the driveway as the cab pulled away. "Who's the Porsche belong to?" he asked, spotting a black 911 with California plates.

"That's Jenny's, believe it or not," Louie replied. "She seems to be doing quite well for herself, too – got herself a nice young man with her, well dressed, looks healthy." He smiled. "Well, all three of your daughters look healthy – that Germanic stock of yours and whatever my sister was, bless her soul – you produced some pretty indestructible offspring."

Jason smiled slightly and nodded. They had also produced three daughters who reminded him – almost painfully so – of Mikayla every time he saw them. They were all three clearly their mother's daughters, but none more so than Jennifer.

He entered the house walking just behind and to the right of Louie – a position he hadn't walked in since 1997, but found himself unconsciously falling into nonetheless. As Louie rounded the corner into the living room, Jason couldn't help but smile as his daughters came into view.

There was Liz, there was Karen, and there was his baby girl, Jenny. The guy with her didn't look half bad – his hair was a little long and was making funny animal shapes, but the suit and the watch he was wearing made it look as though he had a bit of money.

"Hello girls," Jason said with a smile as he walked into the room. "Daddy's home."

Liz and Karen both seemed very happy to see him, leaping up from their seats to give Jason a hug. Jenny, on the other hand, seemed somewhat more restrained, approaching her father slowly, her – boyfriend? fiancé? husband, even? – by her side.

He broke the embrace with Liz and Karen, and walked toward Jenny. "Hello, Jennifer," he said.

"Hi, Dad," she replied, a suspicious tone to her voice. She hugged him awkwardly, and then backed away. "Dad, this is my boyfriend, Charles Carmichael. Chuck, this is my father, Jason Burton."

Jason expected Charles to reach out and shake his hand, but instead, he simply stared blankly back at him for a moment. "Chuck?" Jenny asked.

Charles shook his head. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "It was a long drive from Los Angeles, and I'm a bit out of it. Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Burton."

* * *

As her father turned his attention back to her two sisters, Sarah grabbed Chuck's forearm and pulled him away, out of earshot. "Please, please tell me you didn't just flash on my father," she whispered, a pleading look on her face.

Chuck nodded, reluctantly. "I'm sorry, Sarah," he replied, also whispering. "I flashed on him big time."

Sarah sighed. "I have a bad, bad feeling about this."

* * *

with special guest star  
**Al Pacino**  
as Louis Silvestri


	4. The Job

_**Chuck vs. the Con**_

**CHAPTER FOUR: "The Job"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):  
**young Jenny Burton – Abigail Breslin  
Louis Silvestri – Al Pacino  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Belinda Casey – Stockard Channing  
Robert Casey – Tim Matheson  
Oleg Karimov – Robert "Rob Zombie" Cummings  
Sarah Walker/Jenny Burton – Yvonne Strahovski  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Jason K. Burton – Gary Cole  
Karen Burton – Jennifer Morrison  
Liz Burton – Kate Winslet

* * *

**April 1992  
Syracuse, NY**

Jenny Burton sat in the backyard of Uncle Louie's Syracuse house, absent-mindedly whittling at a piece of oak with a Swiss Army Knife. She knew how to safely use a knife, too, having paid close attention while in the Girl Scouts.

But right at that moment, her mind was a million miles away from Syracuse. Her mother had been buried the afternoon before. Karen and Liz had both blubbered their way through the service, but Jenny had remained strangely dry-eyed.

She supposed it was because she had felt catatonic through the entire funeral. It felt like something had died inside of her when her mother died. A child therapist probably would've told her it was because she had watched both her mother and a police officer die, but Jenny's mind didn't act like that of a therapist.

How her mind did act was like that of an angry twelve year old girl. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that her mother had been taken away from her. It wasn't fair that her father got in trouble ALL THE TIME. It just wasn't fair at all.

As Jenny had been thinking, she hadn't been paying attention to the thickness of the piece of wood. Having carved it too thin, when she pressed the knife against it, it slipped, and the knife cut into the palm of her left hand.

It didn't cut deep, just barely drawing blood, but it still hurt like hell. With a wordless scream, Jenny stood up and hurled the knife across the yard. It flew end over end, burying itself point-first into a tree.

"Well now," she heard a voice behind her say. Turning around and suppressing a curse as she held her injured hand, Jenny saw her Uncle Louie walking up to her. "That was quite an impressive throw, young lady."

Jenny shrugged. "It just happened," she replied.

Louie cocked his head. "I'm not so sure about that," he stated. Reaching into the sport coat he was wearing, he withdrew a much nastier looking butterfly knife. Popping it open, he handed it to Jenny. "Try it again."

Jenny reached out and took the butterfly knife. She looked at it for a moment, and then whirled around, flinging it forcefully at the tree.

The knife flipped through the air, and embedded itself in the tree right below the Swiss Army Knife. "I don't think that 'just happened'," Uncle Louie said. "I think you have a bit of a talent."

* * *

**Camden, NJ**

The streets of downtown Camden were almost eerily silent. The only sounds heard were the noise of horses' hooves clopping, mixed with the engines of close to fifty police vehicles.

Lieutenant John Casey slowly walked down the street, clad in his dress blue uniform. He was just behind his parents, Robert and Belinda Casey. In front of them was a New Jersey State Police honor guard.

Behind Casey was a single riderless horse, being led by a state police officer, and behind that horse was a pair of horses pulling a carriage. In that carriage was a coffin bearing the body of state police Sergeant Mark Casey.

John Casey's face was, like his father's, a carefully crafted mask of emotionless. Inside, though, his emotions were rather similar to the grief pouring from his mother. He felt like his heart had been ripped out and replaced with a snowball.

Mark had always jokingly called John his "little brother" – the two had been born seven minutes apart. He would never do that again, though – his life ended by a senseless act of violence against an innocent woman.

Even as he maintained his air of inscrutability, John Casey swore that if he ever had the chance, he would make sure that the people responsible for this paid.

* * *

**Rego Park, Queens, NY**

Oleg Karimov was nobody. He was a very rich nobody, but he was still nobody.

His parents had immigrated to Queens five years before he was born. Oleg had spent the entire thirty-seven years of his life in Rego Park. He got involved with the Mob – the Russian version – when he was still a teenager, and since then, he had been a low-level enforcer.

The good thing about his job was that people were scared of him. As a result, Oleg had been able to muscle his way into management of, and eventually take over, one of the most prosperous "gentlemen's" clubs in New York City. There was no shortage of men in Queens who wanted to see naked women up close and personal, and so Oleg had gotten rich quickly.

The Mob got a cut, of course, but he kept enough to live a very, very comfortable life. Right at the moment, though, he was at "work", keeping an eye out in the lobby of a small office building while his boss had a meeting upstairs.

Oleg was bored and found himself drifting off. He was about to doze off completely when there was an unexpected BANG! The area around the doorknob on the front door disintegrated entirely, and then the door was kicked in.

Oleg leapt to his feet and reached for his gun, but the sight of a Winchester 30.06 shotgun pointed at his face froze him. "Ah ah, Oleg," Louie Silver admonished him. "Is that any way to welcome a guest?"

"Asshole," Oleg sneered. "What the hell do you want?"

"That's a bad boy, Oleg," Louie sighed. "You can't be cussing like that around my little niece."

Oleg looked down – and sure enough, there was a little girl, who couldn't have been older than twelve, standing next to Oleg. "You brought your niece with you on the job?" he asked in disbelief.

Louie smiled. "She's gonna guard you while I go take care of some business with your boss."

"Oh yeah?" Oleg ridiculed. "With what? A water pistol? Maybe she can hit me with a Barbie doll!"

Louie shook his head and looked down at the girl. "You want to show him what you can do, Jenny?"

Jenny Burton smiled and nodded. Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew the butterfly knife that Louie had given her earlier. Flipping it open, she took aim at the calendar on the wall –

And put the blade of the knife right through Miss April '92's cleavage. Oleg's eyes widened, and with an audible gulp, he sat down very quickly.

"Good boy," Louie said. Jenny crossed the room and retrieved her knife. "Now, you make sure Mr. Karimov doesn't cause any trouble," Louie told his niece. "I have some… business… to take care of upstairs."

"Okay, Uncle Louie," Jenny replied.

Louie smiled and tousled his niece's hair, then headed toward the stairs. Before he ascended them, though, he turned back to Jenny. "One last thing?"

"Yes, Uncle Louie?"

The smile faded from Louie Silver's face as he stared at Oleg Karimov. "If he tries anything, you have my permission to make him a girl."

* * *

**Tempe, AZ  
November 2008**

"A couple miles up the road," Louie Silver said, "there is a little institution known as Northern Arizona University. Within these particular hallowed halls of learning, there is a biochem department that likes to study some very interesting things." He paused and looked around the room. "For example, weapons grade anthrax."

Chuck's eyes widened and his back stiffened. He could feel Sarah's hand grip more tightly around his. Slowly he turned to look at her. _WEAPONS GRADE ANTHRAX?!_ he mouthed.

"In fact," Louie continued, "it is the same strain of anthrax that ruined several peoples' days back in 2002. Now, the actual anthrax that did that came from Fort Detrick, but nonetheless."

He looked Sarah in the eyes, and then did the same with each of her sisters. "Now, there is a particularly loathsome worm who is employed at Northern Arizona University by the name of Oleg Karimov."

"Wait a second," Jason Burton interrupted. "Oleg Karimov? Seriously? The strip club king of Queens?" As he mentioned the name, Chuck heard Sarah's breathing get a little louder. He stole a look over at Sarah, to see that she had gone almost white as a sheet.

"I almost didn't believe it myself," Louie agreed. "But apparently, his smarts extend beyond marketing naked women. In the last fifteen years, he has somehow gotten himself a doctorate and wound up working at Northern Arizona."

He turned and looked at Sarah again. "You remember Oleg, right, Jenny?"

Sarah nodded slowly. "If he ever tries anything, I have your permission to turn him into a girl."

Louie smiled. "Very good, Jennifer. I'm glad to see you remembered that."

He turned his attention back to the group as a whole. "Now, according to my sources, Dr. Karimov is planning to sell some of this weapons grade anthrax to a bunch of equally unpleasant sand worms who work for a little organization known as Al Qaeda. That's not going to happen. We will intercept the shipment before it's even out of Arizona, and turn it over to the Department of Defense – for a tidy fee, of course."

Louie looked at Chuck. "Now, Mister Carmichael, since my lovely niece brought you along, I'm assuming she trusts you enough to be in on a con of the sort we're going to have to pull."

Chuck squirmed internally, but kept the cool Carmichael front. "Mr. Silvestri, nobody can trust me," Chuck said. "But let's just say I'm good for the job."

Louie raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Is that so," he chuckled, turning away. Chuck glanced over at Sarah, who shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"So, Jason, what do you think?" Louie asked his brother-in-law. "What are we gonna need to pull this off?"

"Well," Jason said slowly, "aside from my three beautiful daughters here to head things up, we're gonna need a tech, a couple of gun-slinging wheelmen, some muscle, a medical type or two just in case something happens, and somebody with some biochem knowledge to make sure we're handling this stuff right."

"Who you thinkin'?"

Jason laughed. "I have no idea, Louie," he replied. "When I went in the joint, Bill Clinton was president, remember?"

"I can get you those people," Chuck spoke up, plunging forward before actually thinking. Sarah squeezed his hand – HARD – and he turned to look at her.

_What are you doing?!_ the look on her face screamed. He gave her a reassuring smile, as if to say, "I got this."

"Well, let me rephrase," he backed up. "I can get you MOST of those people."

"Can you now, Mr. Carmichael?" Louie asked, a note of interest in his voice.

"Sure," Chuck replied. "I can do tech – I can disassemble a computer behind my back in my sleep. I know a couple of drivers who just happen to be excellent shots, I know a big thug-like animal, and a couple of doctors. I unfortunately don't know any biochem people, but I'm sure my people can find somebody."

Chuck took a breath. "I will need to go back to Los Angeles to assemble my crew, but once they're all together, I think we can give Danny Ocean a run for his money."

Louie Silver smiled and shook his head. "Alright, Carmichael," he said. "You talk a big game, but I want to see if you're good for it. You got forty-eight hours. Go back to L.A., get your crew together, and then give me a call."

* * *

**Camden, NJ**

Today was John Casey's fortieth birthday.

That meant that it was also Mark Casey's fortieth birthday.

John Casey had spent the last half hour standing outside the cemetery gates, debating whether or not to go in. He didn't have flowers – he NEVER put flowers on his brother's grave, because he knew he'd be getting an ass-kicking in the afterlife if he did that. Instead, he just had a birthday card, signed by every member of Mark's old division.

Finally, he walked into the cemetery. Slowly, he traced the path he knew well, until he stood in front of the block of granite. _MARK RICHARD CASEY_, it said. _NOVEMBER 18, 1968 – APRIL 15, 1992._

"Hey, asshole," Casey greeted his brother, just as he always did – just as he always had when his brother was alive. "Happy birthday."

Leaning over, Casey set the card against the grave stone. He didn't say anything else – he wasn't big on the "Forrest at Jenny's grave" sort of speech. In fact, he thought it rather unmanly, and refused to do it.

So he just stood there for nearly twenty minutes, staring at the spot where his brother lay. His reverie was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone.

Pulling the offending object from his belt, he saw the name "WALKER" appear on the screen. Casey sighed and answered the phone.

"Casey."

"_Casey, you need to get back to Los Angeles as soon as possible._"

Casey raised an eyebrow. "Mind if I ask what's going on?"

Sarah was quiet for a moment, likely trying to figure out how to answer the question on an unsecure line. Finally, she said, "_Let's just say it's Chuck's fault_," a mix of annoyance and amusement in her voice.

Casey snorted. "What a surprise."


	5. TeamBuilding

_**Chuck vs. the Con**_

**CHAPTER FIVE – "Team-Building"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Sarah Walker/Jenny Burton – Yvonne Strahovski  
Ellie Bartowski – Sarah Lancaster  
Devon "Captain Awesome" Woodcomb – Ryan McPartlin  
Major John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
General Dianne Beckman - Bonita Fredericy

* * *

**November 2008  
Echo Park, Los Angeles, California**

It was nearly midnight when Chuck and Sarah got back to Chuck's apartment. Sarah's father had tried to convince them to stay, but Sarah didn't really appear ready to be spending time with her father, and Chuck really wasn't comfortable with the idea of sleeping in a house with TWO people that he had flashed on.

"Casey's home," Sarah observed as they crossed the courtyard. "Or at least his lights are on. We really need to go discuss this with him and probably talk to General Beckman."

"I'm sure we do," Chuck replied, "but first things first. I need to check in with Ellie, just so she knows I still exist. We've been gone since just after midnight, remember?"

Sarah nodded. "Alright," she said. "But quickly."

Chuck pulled out his keys as he approached the door to the apartment. He was about to stick the door key into the deadbolt when the door flew open. Ellie Bartowski stood on the other side, a wild-eyed look on her face.

"WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?" she demanded.

Chuck's eyes went wide. "Uh…" he stammered. "Uh, Sarah and I were, uh, we were in Phoenix, visiting her family."

"GET INSIDE!" Ellie hissed, dragging her brother through the door.

Sarah looked on in astonishment. "Uh, maybe I should go –"

"NOT A CHANCE IN HELL!" Ellie growled. "Get your ass inside!"

Taken aback, Sarah did as ordered and meekly entered the apartment. She looked around, disturbed by the fact that the apartment looked like a tornado had hit.

Chuck sat on the couch next to Devon, neither of them talking. Sarah sidled up to Devon. "Is Ellie alright?" she asked.

Devon shook his head. "She's been like this all day," he whispered. "Ever since she got the news –"

"The AWESOMES are coming for Thanksgiving!" Ellie grumbled with a scowl, turning around to fix Chuck and Sarah with an evil look. "And it would've been REALLY helpful if the two of you had been around today!"

Chuck raised an eyebrow. "Uh, sis, Thanksgiving's nine days away," he said. "You know that, right?"

Ellie turned her glare directly on Chuck. "Charles Irving Bartowski, this is the AWESOME family we're talking about here! Two Awesome doctors, with three Awesome boys, and I'm sure they're just as Awesome in person as they are in description!"

Chuck turned to look at Devon, who looked back. "I've never heard her use the nickname quite so much," Devon whispered.

"No joke," Chuck replied.

"Really," Sarah said, "if this is a family issue, I'm more than happy to not get in the way –"

"SARAH WALKER," Ellie barked, "if you try to get out of this, so help me God, YOU will go in the roasting pan instead of a turkey!"

Sarah gulped visibly. Highly trained CIA operative or not, the look on Ellie's face just at that moment had her more than convinced that the slightly deranged doctor would follow through on that threat.

* * *

**Half an hour later  
John Casey's apartment**

When Chuck and Sarah finally dragged themselves into Casey's apartment, they were greeted by a man with a sickeningly smug smile on his face. "That sounded like fun, kids!" he snorted.

Sarah and Chuck both glared at Casey. "Shut your mouth," Sarah growled. "So help me, I WILL get out the duct tape, John Casey."

"_Is there a problem, Agent Walker?_"

Sarah sighed and rolled her eyes. "You could've told us you had the General on videoconference," she hissed at Casey.

"Well, what fun would that have been?"

Sarah shook her head. "No, ma'am, no problem," she said, walking around the desk to face the screen. "I assume Casey's brought you up to speed?"

"_He has_," General Beckman replied. "_I will admit, my first thought was to ask what the hell Chuck was thinking, but the more I thought about, the more I realized he actually has put us in a very good position to basically control this operation._"

"I had a question about that," Chuck interjected. "Is this a typical sort of thing? For the Mob to intercept a terrorist shipment on behalf of the US government?"

A small smile appeared on General Beckman's face. "_Have you ever heard of the Bay of Pigs, Chuck?_" she asked. "_It happens more often than you'd think. Now, we have no intelligence on this operation that Mr. Silvestri is planning to undertake, but more often than not, we don't really know anything until it happens._"

"Well," Chuck said with a nervous laugh. "That's reassuring."

"_Anyway,_" General Beckman continued. "_Major Casey said that Mr. Burton is looking for a couple of heavily-armed drivers, an enforcer type, a doctor or two, and a biochemist. Who did you have in mind, Chuck?_"

"Well," Chuck began. "I was thinking Bryce and Carina as our armed drivers. Ironically, they're pretty much the only two non-Team Chuck federal agents I trust. Obviously, Casey can be our enforcer. Now, as far as doctors go, I really would prefer not to bring Ellie and Devon into this life – in fact, I've tried to avoid it for the last year, but I trust them. Sarah trusts them, Casey trusts them."

General Beckman's face took on a thoughtful expression. "_Chuck,_" she said quietly, "_I just want to make sure of this. Are you really willing to get your family involved with this life?_"

Chuck shrugged. "The way I look at it, it will make all our lives easier if they know what's really going on with me, and like I said, I trust them. I know it'll be hard for them, but they're strong people."

Beckman nodded. "_I was wondering when you were going to reach this point._"

Chuck looked puzzled. "What point?"

"_The point where you begin to realize that national security sometimes requires undesirable sacrifices,_" Beckman replied. "_I can't necessarily say that I wanted you to get to that point, but it's probably for the best that you have._"

Chuck shrugged and slowly blew out his breath. "General, I'm not saying I want my sister and my brother-in-law-to-be to actively be involved with government operations. I'm just saying that they're who I want for this one."

"_Fair enough_," General Beckman replied. "_Now, I want this mission to have an overall controller. I have every confidence in you, Agent Walker, and you, Major Casey, but I think that it will be easier if you have somebody to directly report to on-scene._"

"Who were you thinking?" Sarah asked.

"_Somebody who can not only be the controller, but who can also serve as the 'face' of the mission if need be,_" Beckman replied. "_I'm going to send you Roan Montgomery_."

Casey sighed. "Oh, joy," he grumbled. "Here we go again."

"_As far as your requests for Agents Larkin and Hansen go, I'll see what I can do,_" Beckman said. "_I think I can get Larkin, but Agent Hansen may be difficult to come by._"

The General hesitated for a moment. "_Now, as far as your biochemist goes, we've put a lot of thought into this, and we've come up with our ideal candidate._"

Casey gave General Beckman a strange look. "General, you don't usually beat around the bush like this," he observed. "Who is it?"

Beckman sighed. "_She's an associate professor at Cal-Berkeley_," she replied. "_She's a year removed from finishing her doctorate at Stanford –_"

Chuck shot upward out of his chair. "Oh, HELL no!" he spat.

"_Calm down, Mr. Bartowski_," General Beckman said. "_Obviously, you already know who I'm going to say. Care to share it with Agent Walker and Major Casey?_"

Chuck sighed heavily and turned to Sarah and Casey. "Unless I'm VERY mistaken," he grumbled, "General Beckman is about to ask us to recruit a beautiful, slightly egg-headed biochemistry genius with a cold heart by the name of Jill Roberts."

Casey shrugged. "Who's Jill Roberts?"

Sarah, on the other hand, had a totally different reaction. "Jill Roberts," she replied. "Is that JILL Jill?"

Chuck nodded his head resignedly. "Yeah."

Sarah turned toward General Beckman. "General, you can't ask Chuck to do that."

Beckman narrowed her eyes. "_Agent Walker, Dr. Roberts is our best option here. Your team has an in with her that you're not going to find with any other biochemist. Chuck can easily exploit their old relationship._"

"Wow," Chuck deadpanned. "When you put it that way, General, how can Jill refuse?"

"Wait a second," Casey interrupted, a smile growing on his face. "Jill Roberts is your ex-girlfriend, Bartowski?"

"Yeah," Chuck shot back. "Just like Ilsa Tranchina is yours."

The smile quickly disappeared from Casey's face. "You're treading on dangerous ground, Bartowski," he growled.

"Likewise!" Chuck replied.

"_GENTLEMEN!_" General Beckman snapped. "_Either whip 'em out and measure, or SHUT UP!_"

The three all turned toward the screen, shocked looks on their faces. "Uh, General…" Sarah said.

"_It's almost four in the morning here,_" Beckman growled. "_I would REALLY like to finish this and go to bed._"

"Yes, ma'am."

* * *

Half an hour later, Chuck had retreated to his apartment to get some sleep. Sarah and Casey were still in Casey's apartment, discussing the mission.

"If we're going to be reporting to Montgomery during this thing, we have got to convince him not to drink on the job," Sarah said. "He nearly wrecked a van full of surveillance equipment the last time we worked with him."

"Agreed," Casey replied. "Also, if General Beckman is able to shake Carina loose, we need to make sure that nobody ends up going anywhere near a bed with her."

Sarah couldn't resist smiling. "I'm pretty sure you're the only on this team with that problem," she cracked. "Moving on, though, you need to resist the temptation to shoot Bryce."

"I'm not going to shoot Larkin," Casey growled. "However, we DO need to keep him and Chuck from getting into a pissing contest, ESPECIALLY if both you and the girl that Bryce took off his hands are around."

Sarah scoffed. "You're one to judge people getting into pissing contests with Chuck," she remarked. "I mean, for God's sake, if you could get General Beckman to make that comment –"

"Oh, you don't EVEN want to go there," Casey shot back. "_General, you can't ask Chuck to do that!_" he mockingly imitated Sarah.

Sarah narrowed her eyes. "Don't start, Casey," she hissed.

"Please," Casey replied, rolling his eyes. "I don't believe for one minute that that was the agent side of you speaking. That was the side of you that wants Bartowski's chocolate to end up in your peanut butter."

Sarah's jaw dropped. "WHAT?!"

"Oh yeah," Casey said. "You want it bad, and you're afraid he's gonna end up putting his chocolate in this Roberts girl's peanut butter."

Sarah shook her head in disbelief. "I never knew it was possible to be so vulgar without actually saying anything crude," she said.

Casey smiled. "It's a talent, Walker. Now, a word of advice? If you don't want Bartowski's chocolate being part of somebody else's peanut butter cup, then you need to take action. His dick isn't gonna suck its-"

_SMACK_

Casey staggered backward, a hand coming up to rub his stinging jaw. "Hmmm, over the line?" he grunted.

"CONSIDERABLY," Sarah spat. "I swear to God, Casey, if you EVER say anything like that again –"

"Alright, alright!" Casey said. "I'm sorry!"

* * *

Chuck had just returned to his bedroom from the shower when his phone started ringing. He picked it up. _Restricted number_, it said. Curious, Chuck answered it – who would possibly be calling him at this time of night?

"Hello?"

"_Chuck, this is General Beckman._"

Chuck's eyes widened. "General. Hi. What can I do for you?"

"_Chuck, I understand that recruiting Jill Roberts will probably not be the easiest thing in the world. But do you understand just how important it is to the mission?_"

Chuck sighed. "I suppose so, ma'am, but I left things on such bad terms with her that I'm not sure I want to talk to her again."

General Beckman laughed quietly. "_Chuck, less than an hour ago, you told me you were willing to involve your family in this mission because it was important for national security. Now you're telling me that you don't want to speak to your ex-girlfriend?_"

Chuck nodded. "Fair enough, General, but it's still not easy."

"_Well, Chuck, I've sent you an e-mail with Dr. Roberts contact info. What you do with it is up to you. I trust you'll do the right thing._"

Chuck sighed. "Yes, ma'am."

"_Good night, Chuck._"

"Good night, General."


	6. Influenza

_**Chuck vs. the Con**_

**Chapter Six: "Influenza"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):  
**The Crown Vic - herself**  
**Major John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Rowan Montgomery – John Larroquette

* * *

**between Banning and Palm Desert, California  
Eight Days to Thanksgiving**

At ten o'clock at night on a Wednesday evening, this stretch of California Highway 111 was fairly quiet. Every so often, a truck would blow past, but aside from that, the only car on the road this night was a black 1985 Ford LTD Crown Victoria.

John Casey loved to drive on quiet roads at this time of night. It meant that he got to experience something he called "dark cockpit" – the only light in the car came from the gauges on the dashboard. He was especially grateful for the dark cockpit on this particular night, as it meant that when he looked in the rearview mirror, he couldn't really make out Walker, asleep, with her head in Bartowski's lap.

The unfortunate fact of John Casey's existence, however, was that he had a very active imagination. As a result, he was able to picture quite well in his mind's eye the unconscious stupid smile that probably adorned Walker's sleeping face, the absent-minded fingers running through her hair as Bartowski drifted off to sleep himself – it was enough to make the NSA agent's skin crawl. The idea of an agent falling for an asset was bad enough in Casey's book, but somehow, the idea of Walker and Bartowski together –

Casey shuddered. He loathed the idea of the inevitable day when he would be forced to shut off the bugs in Bartowski's apartment and then go bleach his eardrums. He knew it was going to eventually happen. He also knew that he wasn't going to do a damn thing about it, because to report it to Beckman would mean to admit failure on his own part, and that SURE as hell wasn't happening. If Walker and Bartowski wanted to do it like they do on the Discovery Channel, that was their business, and John Casey intended to turn a blind eye. And a deaf ear. And try not to think about it, EVER.

The midst of the Mohave Desert slowly turned into the outskirts of Palm Springs as Casey kept driving eastbound on Highway 111. General Beckman had spent all day attempting to locate Rowan Montgomery, and when she had finally succeeded in tracking him down at his condo in Palm Desert, he had hung up the phone. Incensed, she told Casey to go find him and "drag his decrepit old ass back to Los Angeles," as she had so delicately put it.

And so, as soon as Bartowski's shift at the Buy More had ended, Casey had corralled him and Walker, essentially tossed them in the Crown Vic, and took off for the middle of the desert. That meant taking the I-210 freeway east through the San Gabriel Valley during rush hour, which Casey loathed, but somehow, he managed to get through it without shooting anybody.

If Casey had had his druthers, neither Walker nor Bartowski would be on this mission. However, he knew that having another gun hand along never hurt, and he had to grudgingly admit that Walker was far and away the best shot he had ever known – save for himself, of course. In addition, Bartowski seemed to have formed some sort of bizarre rapport with Montgomery two months earlier, and so Casey figured that the little pain in the ass might be helpful in getting Montgomery to go along with the plan.

As Casey drove deeper into the metro Palm Springs area, he could hear Bartowski stirring in the backseat. "How much further?" the younger man asked tiredly.

"Couple more miles," Casey replied. "You might want to get Walker up so she's ready to hit the ground running."

"I'm awake," he heard the CIA agent say. "I just don't feel like moving."

There was something off about Walker's voice that Casey couldn't quite identify. Chuck apparently noticed it too, asking, "Are you alright, Sarah?"

As she very stiffly moved herself into a sitting position, Casey looked quickly in the rearview mirror – and was shocked to see not just the grimace of pain on Sarah's face, but the rather unhealthy pallor to her face. "Walker?" he asked, concern in his voice.

"I'm fine," she replied grumpily, shaking her head. "I'm just sore, that's all. Sleeping on the bench seat in an old police car will do that."

Chuck looked on, worried, as Sarah took one deep breath, and then another. "Sarah, are you sure?"

She started to nod her head, and then her eyes went wide. "Oh God," she uttered. "Casey –"

But the NSA agent was a step ahead of her, already maneuvering the Crown Vic off the side of the road and bringing it to a stop. As soon as the car came to a halt, Sarah bailed out the back right door, managing to make it to a bush before expelling the contents of her stomach onto the ground.

"Lovely," Casey grumbled, raising an eyebrow. Behind him, Chuck was scrambling out of the car. "Sarah!" he said, crossing the sidewalk toward her.

Casey put the car into park and got out, looking over toward Walker. She was bent over, hands on her knees, the motion of her back making it evident that she was breathing in deeply, trying to keep her digestive system from any further rebellion. As Casey watched, Bartowski brushed the hair away from Sarah's forehead, pressing the back of his hand against the skin. "God, Sarah, you're burning up!" he exclaimed.

"It must… be food poisoning… or something," Sarah gasped.

"Yeah, or something," Casey cracked. "Walker, did you ever get a flu shot this year?"

Sarah slowly looked up, a guilty look painting itself on her face. "No," she admitted.

"Bartowski?"

"Yeah," Chuck replied. "Strongly recommended by the Buy More employee manual."

"Good call," Casey said. "Walker, this is just an amateur guess here, but I'd say that you've got yourself a bit of the flu."

"But how?" Sarah protested weakly. "I haven't really been around anybody sick, I'm not around kids –"

"It's the middle of November," Casey shot back, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. "Prime flu season, genius."

Sarah sighed unhappily. "Dammit," she grumbled. "Now what?"

Casey shrugged. "We go on with the mission," he said. "What did you think?"

"Waiiiit, no," Chuck interrupted. "Look at her – there's no way she's in any shape to be doing anything, even if it is as simple as recruiting Agent McBoozey."

Sarah gave Chuck an evil look. "I will be fine," she insisted, as she started to stand up. As she reached full height though, she started to wobble, and then her knees gave out. Chuck, moving quickly, grabbed her under the arms and caught her before she could fall.

Casey sighed. "Look, Walker, as much as I hate to admit this, Bartowski's right. You're not in any shape to be doing anything. You need to go back to Los Angeles and sleep for about a day."

"Casey –"

"Sarah, you need to admit that you just can't do this right now," Chuck said, cutting her off. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. You got the flu. It's not the end of the world."

"But, what about the mission?" Sarah asked weakly, as Chuck helped her back to the Crown Vic. "Who takes care of that?"

Casey took a deep breath. "I don't think either of you are going to like this idea."

Sarah and Chuck both looked at Casey. "What?" Chuck asked.

"Well," Casey said slowly, "we drive the rest of the way to Montgomery's condo. Bartowski goes in to talk to him, and Walker and I head back to L.A."

"WHAT?!" Sarah shrieked, setting off a coughing fit.

Chuck shook his head. "You've lost your mind, Casey. It's evident."

"We can't both leave Chuck alone!" Sarah insisted.

"We wouldn't be," Casey replied. "We'd be leaving him with Rowan Montgomery, who in case you've forgotten, is an intelligence legend."

"No," Sarah said, smacking the palm of her hand against the roof of the Crown Vic. "Either we all go, or NONE of us go."

Casey hesitated, and looked over at Chuck. Chuck looked back at him, seeming to say, _Don't even think of putting this on me_.

"Alright," Casey growled. "But if you pass out, Walker, you can't say I didn't warn you."

Chuck's eyes widened. Clearly that wasn't what he had had in mind, and even as he helped Sarah back into the Crown Vic, Chuck was trying to talk her out of it.

"Sarah," he said quietly, "it's okay. We can do this another time. We don't have to get Rowan right now."

Sarah shook her head, a stubborn look on her face. "We need to get Rowan onboard right now. We don't have a very big window of opportunity."

Chuck sighed. "Sarah, you don't have to be so stubborn. You're human, just like anybody else, and if you're not feeling well, something could happen –"

"Chuck," she said quietly, cutting him off. Sarah looked at him for a moment, a smile appearing on her lips in spite of the less than healthy appearance of her face. "I know what you're doing, and I think it's really sweet that you're trying to look out for me. But we've got a mission, and it needs to be accomplished. Alright?"

Chuck looked back at her, a look of resignation on his face. "Alright," he finally said. "But if you yak on Rowan Montgomery, you can't blame me."

* * *

The remaining ten minutes of the drive to Montgomery's condo passed uneventfully. However, when they disembarked from the Crown Vic, Chuck still had to support Sarah, who was very weak on her feet.

"Bartowski," Casey muttered in Chuck's ear as they walked up the path to Montgomery's front door, "do me a favor and make sure she doesn't draw her gun for any reason, eh?"

"Will do," Chuck replied.

Casey stepped up to Montgomery's front door and pushed the doorbell. There was a sound inside, but no immediate response. After a moment, Casey knocked, and then knocked again. He was on his fifth go-round of knocking when they heard noise from within.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU – oh, it's you," Rowan Montgomery spat disgustedly as he wrenched open the door. "Major Suckup, Agent Hotass, and Mr. Cartowski. Or Barmichael. Or was your name the Intersect?"

Chuck's eyes went wide, and Casey's gun cleared its holster before Chuck could even blink. "Alright, Montgomery, you have five seconds to explain how you know!" Casey barked.

Montgomery made a face. "Calm down, Major Casey," he grumbled. "I just happen to be very talented at… shall we say… loosening a certain general's inhibitions."

The look on Casey's face changed from determined to horrified as the implications of Montgomery's statement set in. "Oh… God," he spat out, his face turning into a sneer of disgust.

"I think my brain just shut down," Chuck said, a look of wide-eyed shock on his face.

"I'm gonna be sick," Sarah groaned.

"Yeah, we all are," Casey agreed.

"No, seriously," Sarah said urgently, pushing her way past Casey and into Montgomery's condo. She disappeared down the hallway, and they heard a door slam, followed by the faint sounds of retching.

"Lovely," Montgomery deadpanned. "Pregnant?"

A ghost of a smile appeared on Casey's face. "Flu," he replied. "Far as I can tell, nuns get more than Walker."

Montgomery raised an eyebrow. "Mr. Bartowski, I'm disappointed in you," he said. "Was a white dinner jacket and a rose such a difficult set of instructions to follow?"

Chuck shook his head. "It's a long story, sir. Suffice it to say it involved an unwelcome intrusion by another agent."

"Ah," Montgomery said, a look of understanding appearing on his face. "A jilted lover?"

"In a manner of speaking," Chuck said slowly. A tiny smile appeared on his face as he said, "And she jilted him one more time."

Montgomery nodded his head. "Then it's only a matter of time, Charles."

Casey hung his head in despair.

"So," Montgomery continued. "What brings you here to my Palm Desert hideaway? I'm assuming it's for whatever Dianne didn't get to tell me when I hung up on her earlier?"

"Yeah," Chuck replied. "Why did you hang up on her?"

Montgomery shrugged. "I had a naked twenty-seven year old Continental Airlines stewardess wrapped around my waist –"

"Oh GOD," Casey barked. "You have to stop doing that!"

"And they don't call them stewardesses any more," came Sarah's voice from behind Montgomery.

"Ah, Agent Walker," Montgomery said, turning around. "So lovely to see you in good health and spirits. Or, wait, no," he demurred. "I'm sorry, my mistake. Why the hell didn't you get a flu shot?! Agency regulations call for regular vaccine regimens!"

Sarah narrowed her eyes. "You know what?" she asked angrily. "You try having my job, see how much spare time you have!"

"Bullshit," Casey muttered.

"What?!"

"I said bullshit," Casey shot back. "You could've gone and gotten yours when Bartowski got his."

"Don't start with me, Casey!"

"My friends, my friends," Montgomery interrupted, holding up his hands. "Now is not the time for an angry argument. In fact, I think it would be best if we discussed… whatever it is you've come to discuss… over a drink?"

He turned and headed back into the condo, leaving Casey and Chuck staring after him in disbelief.

"A drink?" Chuck asked. "Really, we're going to discuss a mission over a drink?"

"Yeah," Casey replied, a note of defeat in his voice. "We're dead."


	7. The Face

_**Chuck vs. the Con**_

**Chapter Seven: "The Face"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Rowan Montgomery – John Larroquette  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Adam Baldwin – Adam Baldwin  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Mott – James Kyson Lee  
Jason K. "Jack" Burton – Gary Cole  
Louis Silvestri – Al Pacino

* * *

**Palm Desert, California**

Chuck, Casey, and a very haggard looking Sarah followed Rowan Montgomery back into his Palm Desert condominium. "A drink?" Chuck asked Casey, _sotto voce_. "Really, we're going to discuss a mission over a drink?"

Casey's face had taken on a look of despair. "Yeah. We're dead."

"Oh, don't be such a downer, Major," Montgomery said in disgust as he entered his kitchen. "Just because I want to have a drink doesn't mean I'm going to compromise the mission."

"All due respect, sir," Sarah interjected, sounding tired, "but the last time we were on a mission with you, you spilled a martini on a sound processing board."

Montgomery looked up from the drink he was preparing and cocked his head. "Agent Walker, you are the last person in the world who should be criticizing a fellow agent for taking actions to compromise a mission."

Sarah's eyes widened and her face turned bright red. "Oh, yes, Agent Walker," Montgomery chided her. "I heard all about when you chose to go after a perfectly safe Mr. Bartowski instead of assisting Agent Larkin with the capture of an enemy agent. Care to explain yourself?"

Sarah looked at Montgomery for a long moment, and then her face hardened. "No," she grated. "I don't."

"Very well," Montgomery replied, crossing the room to Sarah. "Here, drink this. It'll make you feel better."

Sarah looked at Montgomery guardedly, and then sniffed the drink. "Oh, for God's sake, just drink it, Agent Walker," Montgomery spat. "I'm not trying to poison you."

Sarah raised an eyebrow, and then took a sip of the drink. "Agent Walker, it will do you no good if you just sit there and sip it," Montgomery said in exasperation.

"Fine," Sarah shot back, drinking the rest of it in one gulp. Then her eyes widened. "What the hell –"

Sarah slumped down in her chair, sliding down to the floor. Chuck dove out of his chair to catch her under the arms, keeping her from hitting the floor.

Before Montgomery could move, Casey's gun was out, pointed at the retired CIA agent. "What the hell did you give her?!"

"Relax, Major," Montgomery replied. "It's a CIA-approved flu remedy. It'll put her out for about twelve hours, which will give her more than ample time to recover."

Crossing to a closet, Montgomery opened it and retrieved a sport coat. "In the meantime, the three of us can go take care of whatever business it is that you need me for, and be back in time for breakfast with Agent Walker. Unless, of course, one of you has an objection."

Chuck looked at Casey. Casey shrugged. "I guess it's not that bad a plan," he said.

"Wait, no!" Chuck interrupted. "We can't just leave Sarah here alone!"

Montgomery smiled. "No problem there, Mr. Bartowski. MOTT!"

Chuck winced at Montgomery's shout. A Japanese man in his late thirties ran into the room.

"Yes, Mr. Montgomery?"

Rowan Montgomery looked at Chuck and Casey. "Mr. Bartowski, Major Casey, meet Agent Mott. He's a former Yakuza bodyguard, and he was an informant of mine when I was an active agent. He now works for the Secret Service and is permanently assigned to me."

Montgomery's smile got even bigger. "Trust me when I say that if anybody tries to harm Agent Walker, they will meet an unfortunate end."

* * *

Chuck and Casey had to admit that traveling with Rowan Montgomery had its perks. The man had his own private jet – "Courtesy of some money I managed to swindle out of the KGB back in the '80s," he explained.

As a result, the trip to Phoenix took less than an hour from the Palm Springs airport; however, by the time they reached Louie Silver's mansion in Tempe, it was well after midnight. "Wake 'em up," Montgomery demanded of the limo driver.

"Sir… uh, I know who lives here," the limo driver replied nervously. "I really don't feel like aggravating him."

Montgomery sighed. "Pansy," he grumbled, climbing out of the limo. He walked around to the callbox and pressed the button. One ring, two rings, three rings –

"_Who the fuck?!_"

"Mr. Silvestri, good evening," Montgomery said. "I'm here with a Mr. Carmichael and another associate of ours… I know your niece, Ms. Burton?"

Silence for a moment. "_Which Ms. Burton?_"

"Jennifer, sir."

There was no response for a moment, and then, the gate swung open. "That's how it's done," Montgomery told the limo driver with a smile as he climbed back into the stretched Lincoln.

The white limousine pulled up the driveway to the front of the house. "Thank you, sir," Montgomery said to the limo driver, handing him the fare plus a twenty dollar tip as they disembarked.

"Any time," the driver replied, accelerating away from the house as quickly as he could.

As the three men approached the front door of the house, it was opened to reveal a very tired and cranky looking Louie Silver standing in the doorway. "CARMICHAEL!" he bellowed. "What in the blue hell is the meaning of this?!"

Chuck put his hands up. "I apologize, sir, it was my colleague's fault. He insisted on coming, and quite frankly, sir, he's an unstoppable force of nature."

"Very true," Montgomery said. "Mr. Silvestri, my name is Rowan Montgomery. This is my assistant, John Clark. We are associates of Mr. Carmichael's, and were informed that we could possibly play a role in a job that he is staffing for you."

Silvestri's mood changed immediately. "Is that so," he said, his voice becoming much more pleasant. "In that case, please, do come in."

They followed Silvestri into the living room, where Jason Burton sat, looking like he had just been pulled from his bed. "Chuck," he said tiredly. "Nice to see you again."

"You too, sir," Chuck replied. "Uh, Mr. Burton, this is Rowan Montgomery, and John, uh, John Clark. Rowan, John, this is Sa… Jennifer's father, Jason Burton."

Rowan and Casey both shook Burton's hand. "Mr. Burton," Montgomery said.

"Please, call me Jack," he replied. Chuck gave him a weird look. _Jack?_ he thought.

"Anybody for a drink?" Silvestri asked from the side of the room, where he seemed to be preparing himself one.

"What are you having?" Montgomery replied.

"Vodka martini," Silvestri said. "James Bond style."

"Excellent. I'll have one as well." Montgomery flashed a smile at Casey and Chuck. Casey rolled his eyes and Chuck groaned out loud.

"So," Silvestri began, taking a sip of his martini as he handed Rowan's over, "what the hell could've possibly brought you looney-tunes to my house in the middle of the night?"

"Well," Rowan said, "I wanted to discuss this job with you. I wanted to discuss what role Mr. Clark and I could play in this operation."

Silvestri spread his hands wide. "Please. Enlighten me."

Montgomery nodded. "Very well. Mr. Clark here can drive a Crown Victoria like a Ferrari, and he's a deadly shot with any gun ever made. He's not afraid to kill, and has done so many times."

Louie Silver narrowed his eyes. "Is that so," he said. "Mr. Clark – can you prove it to me?"

Casey smiled, an evil look crossing his face. "But of course," he replied. "Mr. Silvestri, could you do me a favor?"

"What's that, Mr. Clark?"

"Blink."

Silvestri looked at Casey as if he'd lost his mind. "I beg your pardon?"

"Blink, sir."

Silvestri looked from Casey, to Chuck, to Montgomery. "I imagine he has his reasons," Montgomery said.

"Alright," Silvestri replied. He blinked –

"HOLY JESUS!"

The former Mob man quickly jerked away from Casey, stumbling and nearly falling as he did so. In the blink of an eye, Casey's hands had gone from being at his side to being up by Silvestri's face, a gun in them, aimed at his forehead.

Silvestri stared at Casey in wide-eyed astonishment. "How the HELL did you do that?"

Casey smiled. "I'm just that good, sir."

Louie Silver shook his head. "Okay," he said to Montgomery. "Clark here has proven his worth. What's your role?"

Rowan Montgomery smiled. "I'm the face of this job, sir."

Silvestri stared at him, as if expecting more. When Montgomery didn't say anything else, he spoke. "That's it?"

"Absolutely," Montgomery replied. "Here's the thing, sir. I'm former CIA. Kicked out for bad reasons, but that's neither here nor there. The truth of the matter is, I know how these operations work, and I know you need a face – somebody who can put your mark at ease, who can grease the skids, make sure everything goes according to plan."

Sarah Walker's uncle shook his head. "I'm gonna humor you here for a minute," he said. "Tell me, why exactly should you be the face of this mission?"

"Well, here's the deal," Montgomery answered. "Mr. Carmichael here tells me that you're dealing with one Doctor Oleg Karimov, a biochemist at Northern Arizona University?"

"Yeah," Silvestri said. "So?"

"I'm familiar with Karimov," Rowan explained. "I understand that he used to be part of the Russian Mob in New York, and I understand that he's had dealings with you. Therefore, he will of course know who you are, which eliminates you as the face of the operation."

"Well, isn't that special," Silvestri replied dryly. "What's wrong with my brother-in-law? Or any of my beautiful nieces? Or for that matter, Mr. Carmichael here?"

Montgomery chuckled. "First of all, none of them has the training that I do. But let's throw that out for a moment here. Your brother-in-law – well, I've read his file. I still have connections in the agency, and I can still get what I need. Sure, he's a good operator, but let's face facts, he's fairly unattractive." Jack Burton's face took on a hurt look. "No offense sir, but it's true, and the fact of the matter is, unattractive people don't garner as much respect."

Burton nodded, although he looked genuinely hurt. Chuck made a mental note to talk to him later, to tell him the story of the time Rowan Montgomery had accused him of being a 27 year-old virgin.

"As far as your daughters go, they are indeed beautiful, but Russians simply do not respect women enough for one of them to pull off the job." Montgomery smiled. "After all, look at what they did to Catherine the Great."

Montgomery turned to Chuck. "And finally, Mr. Carmichael – well, I'm not entirely convinced he's ever had intercourse, and if a man doesn't have the balls for that, then he doesn't have the balls for this mission."

Chuck shot to his feet, furious. "You know what, Montgomery?" he spat. "This was an enormous mistake, involving you. I'm sick and tired of your bullshit."

Rowan smiled condescendingly at Chuck. "Well, Mr. Carmichael, if you get laid, I might let up on the bullshit."

"Yeah, fuck off," Chuck shot back, storming toward the front door. "And for the record, Catherine the Great died of natural causes, you pompous ass."

"Mr. Carmichael…"

The voice of Louie Silver pulled Chuck back from the front door. Chuck sighed, and turned around. "Yes, sir?"

"Running away from your tormentor will not solve your problems."

Chuck cocked his head, and was surprised to find himself mentally agreeing with the older Italian man. "You know, sir, I think you're right." He crossed the room, moving back toward Rowan Montgomery – and when he reached him, without any warning, raised his right hand, balled it into a fist, and punched Montgomery square in the jaw.

Montgomery staggered backward, dropping his martini as he did so. Tripping over his own feet, he fell backwards, landing hard on his ass. A stunned look appeared on his face.

John Casey bit his lip to keep from laughing, and Jack Burton didn't even attempt to not smile. Chuck stared down at Montgomery as the retired agent regained his composure. A look of anger washed over his face momentarily, but then he calmed.

"Maybe, Mr. Carmichael, maybe I was wrong about you," Montgomery said. "It appears you have balls after all."


	8. Awakenings & Realizations

_**Chuck vs. the Con**_

**Chapter Eight: "Awakenings & Realizations"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Jill Roberts – Jordana Brewster  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Deborah Goldman – Bar Refaeli  
Yoshiro "Mott" Matsuki – James Kyson Lee

* * *

_**Palo Alto, California  
December 2000**_

_Chuck knew that he really shouldn't be here at this time of night. It was just after midnight, and during reading week, going into another dorm and knocking on the door at this time of night was frowned upon by Residence Life._

_But Chuck didn't have a choice. If he didn't ace his biochem final, he was going to fail the course. If he failed, he stood a very good chance of not having a high enough GPA to have his scholarship renewed at the end of the year. If he didn't have his scholarship renewed at the end of the year…_

_Chuck shuddered. There was no WAY he was going back to the Buy More._

_Bracing himself, he lightly knocked on the door. A moment later, it swung open – revealing his, thankfully, very much awake girlfriend._

"_Chuck!" Jill said, with an equally confused and pleased smile. "I wasn't expecting to see you tonight!"_

_Chuck sighed. "I wasn't expecting to be here tonight," he replied. "But the thing is, I need your help, Jill. I really do."_

_Jill's smile faded. "What's wrong?"_

"_It's biochem," Chuck said quietly. "I, uh, sorta suck at biochem."_

* * *

**Palm Desert, California**

Sarah Walker awoke with a start.

She had no idea where she was.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. She knew her immediate surroundings. She was in a bedroom – and a fairly nice one at that. She was lying on an extraordinarily comfortable king size bed. Dark red satin sheets covered the bed. It was clear from the sheets' distinct amount of dampness that Sarah's fever had broken at some point during the night.

Sunlight streamed through cracks between the blinds. Sarah closed her eyes for a moment, trying to figure out how she had gotten here.

They had arrived at Montgomery's house the night before, her with the flu. Montgomery had admonished her for not getting a flu shot, and then given her a drink. "_Just drink it, Agent Walker_," he had said. "_I'm not trying to poison you._"

"You son of a bitch," Sarah whispered with a wry grin.

Slowly getting out of the bed – fever or no, her body still ached – she crossed to the window and opened the blinds. "Well, that's interesting," she muttered, seeing Casey's Crown Victoria parked in the driveway.

As Sarah turned away from the window, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror – and realized that she was most definitely not wearing the same clothes that she had been wearing when she arrived. She was wearing dark green woman's pajamas which were clean and, amazingly enough, her size. Her own clothes were stacked in a neat pile on a low table at the foot of the bed.

Sarah's nose wrinkled in distaste at the thought of somebody undressing her and redressing her in these pajamas, while she was unconscious. Then she thought of the idea of Chuck doing it –

_STOP IT_, she ordered herself. Thoughts like that were only going to get her into trouble, ESPECIALLY after Montgomery had called her on it the night before.

_That son of a bitch_, she thought again. She had just about had it with Rowan Montgomery, even if everything he had said or done the night before had, in its own way, been in her best interests.

Well, it was time to face the day. Still sore or not, Sarah felt several times better than she had the night before. She didn't like the idea of wearing yesterday's clothes, but if she had to –

Wait. As she picked up her shirt, she caught a whiff of the fresh scent that comes only with clean laundry. Holding the shirt to her face, she inhaled deeply. Yes, it had certainly been cleaned. She ascertained the same about her jeans a moment later.

"I could get used to this," Sarah said to herself quietly as she dressed. She looked around the room for her shoes – but it was in vain. The black Converse high-tops she had been wearing the night before were the one full concession she allowed herself to make to the way she felt about Chuck, and she was going to be very annoyed if they had disappeared.

So, barefoot, she opened the door and stepped out into the hallway – where she almost ran into a woman in a black t-shirt and jeans. The woman was Sarah's height, dirty blonde hair, tan skin, approximately the same build – _these are probably her pajamas_, Sarah thought tangentially. Nonetheless, she froze, quickly assessing the other woman for threats – and then realizing that the other woman was doing the same exact thing to her.

The other woman relaxed first. "Ah, you must be Agent Walker," she said, extending a hand.

"Sarah," Sarah replied, taking the woman's hand.

"I am Deborah Goldman. Former Mossad. Rowan managed to talk me into the CIA a few years back." She frowned. "The CIA assigned me to him for his protection, and I'm supposed to stay with him at all times, but I guess he managed to talk Mott into letting him leave with just your two partners for backup."

_My two partners?!_ "What do you mean, they left?" Sarah asked, a note of alarm in her voice. "You mean, they just left me here?"

"Not to worry, Agent Walker," came another voice. Sarah turned her head to see a short but muscular Asian man approaching down the hallway. "I am Yoshiro Matsuki, but you may call me Mott. I am Mr. Montgomery's other bodyguard."

Deborah laughed. "Yeah, bodyguards," she cracked. "I believe that you and I have ended up as his butler and his maid, respectively."

Mott shrugged. "Comes with the job, I suppose."

Sarah shook her head. "Okay. Hold on. Let's back up to the part where my partners left?"

"Oh, right," Deborah said. "Rowan said they were going to Phoenix."

Sarah raised an eyebrow at Deborah's familiar use of Montgomery's first name, but didn't say anything about it. It was more the "they were going to Phoenix" part of her statement that set off alarms.

_Uncle Louie_, she thought. _Goddammit._

"Okay," she said. "Ummm… I need my phone. And my gun."

Mott grew a concerned look on his face. "Uh… Agent Walker, our orders are to not let you out of our sight until Mr. Montgomery returns."

Sarah closed her eyes and sighed. "Fine," she replied. "Then you're coming with me."

She swept past Deborah and Mott into the living room. Her gun, phone, and wallet were sitting on a credenza, her shoes on the floor in front of it. Crossing to the credenza, she stuffed her phone and wallet into her pockets, and pushed the gun into her waistband in the small of her back before bending over to put her shoes on.

"Agent Walker, I don't think we can leave," Deborah objected. "We have to stay he-"

Sarah stood up and cut Deborah off. "You're Israeli, obviously," she said. "And you," she continued, pointing to Mott. "Japanese, right?"

"Yes," Mott replied uncertainly. "And?"

Sarah smiled. "Are either of you in the country legally?"

Deborah and Mott exchanged a look. "Well, not per se," Deborah replied, an uneasy note to her voice.

"Good," Sarah replied, her smile getting bigger. "Then you both do as I say from here on out. Understood?"

Without waiting for a reply, she marched toward the front door. As she opened it, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and began dialing Chuck's number. Holding the phone to her ear, she waited… and waited. Five rings later, it went to his voicemail.

"Dammit," she hissed as she headed toward Casey's Crown Vic, Montgomery's two bodyguards in her wake. Switching to the tracking app on her iPhone, she told it to pull up Chuck's location –

_GPS TRACKING NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE_, the phone announced. _PLEASE TRY AGAIN IN A 3G SERVICE AREA_.

Sarah grimaced. "Piece of shit," she muttered.

* * *

**Palo Alto, California**

The fact of the matter was, though, that Chuck didn't even know that Sarah was trying to call him. His cell phone was on silent, because at that moment, he was sitting in the very back of a lecture hall which he had not been in for nearly seven years.

It was in this lecture hall that Chuck had, his sophomore year of college, basically snoozed through a semester of biochemistry and had been lucky to escape with a C-minus. Despite the fact that his brain had the capacity to absorb the Intersect, it apparently had not been enough to allow him to remember how a virus manifested itself in its airborne state.

_Maybe I would've paid more attention if my instructor had looked more like the one teaching this course_, Chuck thought to himself. Of course, it was the very individual who was teaching the class that Chuck had crashed who had occupied many of his thoughts his sophomore year. Indeed, his daydreams about her had likely contributed somewhat to his less than stellar biochem grade.

It had been five and a half years since she had betrayed him. Right after he was stabbed in the back by Bryce Larkin, she had developed a heart of ice and turned her back on Chuck by sleeping with, of all people, Bryce Larkin.

_That was not good times_, Chuck thought to himself. He had walked out of the Buy More on his lunch break, gotten into a Herder, and driven all the way from Burbank to Palo Alto – only to discover the horrifying truth of Jill and Bryce.

That had not gone over well with Big Mike. Or, for that matter, Harry Tang, but at the time, both Chuck and Harry had simply been stockers, and Harry had absolutely no pull over him.

However, in spite of Jill's betrayal all those years before, Chuck couldn't ignore so many of the old feelings that rushed to the surface at the sight of her. He had loved her, he truly had. He had been scrimping and saving to buy her the ring that he thought she deserved when he got kicked out of Stanford.

For that reason alone, he was grateful that Montgomery and Casey had stayed in the car. He did not want them to see him when he finally talked to her.

Fifteen more minutes passed, and finally the class ended. "Remember, there's a quiz on chapter 16 tomorrow," Jill announced. "It's the last quiz before the final, so make sure you know your stuff!"

Students began filing out the doors at the back of the lecture hall, but Chuck headed the other direction. He felt like a salmon swimming upstream for a moment, but he broke through all the students. He opened his mouth to speak, but found that it had gone dry.

Chuck closed his eyes and took a deep breath. _Time to pretend to be Carmichael_, he thought. Licking his lips, he said, "Uh, Dr. Roberts?"

His voice didn't sound like his own. It cracked as the words came out, much to Chuck's dismay. Without turning her back, Jill said, "What can I do for you?"

Chuck took another deep breath to calm himself. "I have a problem," he said, his voice now sounding much more like his own. "I, uh, sorta suck at biochem."

Jill's back stiffened. She turned around slowly, a look of astonishment on her face. "Chuck?" she asked quietly.

He couldn't help but smile. "Long time, no see, huh?"

* * *

**Yucaipa, California**

Casey's Crown Vic sped west on Interstate 10, Sarah at the wheel. Yoshiro Matsuki was napping in the back seat, and Deborah Goldman rode shotgun, an uneasy look on her face.

Sarah noticed Deborah's uneasiness. "Deborah, what's wrong?" she asked. "Talk to me."

"I don't know," Deborah replied. "I just… I feel a little weird about leaving Mr. Montgomery's house empty and unguarded."

Sarah laughed quietly. "Deborah," she said, "I have seen lesser security systems at embassies than what you activated when we left Montgomery's house. It'll be fine."

Deborah seemed to accept Sarah's assessment, but she still didn't relax. "Then, if I may ask, where are we going?"

"Well," Sarah replied, "for some reason, my iPhone has lost the ability to track my partners. So, we're heading to my base of operations, in northeast Los Angeles. From there, we'll be able to figure out where they are."

Deborah frowned. "I told you – they went to Phoenix."

Sarah shook her head. "They're not there."

"How can you be certain?"

_Because they went to make contact with my dad, and he said they're gone_, Sarah growled mentally. Instead, she said, "I just know."

The answer didn't seem to satisfy Deborah, but she nonetheless fell quiet. The rest of the drive was spent in silence.

By the time the Crown Vic pulled up in front of the Orange Orange, both Deborah and Mott were asleep. Sarah gently shook them awake, and they groggily followed her out of the Crown Vic and into the yogurt shop. "Stay here," she instructed them, stepping through the back room door.

Opening the fake freezer door, she descended into the Castle. As soon as she pressed her palm against the entry pad, the entire place lit up, with several monitors activating.

One of the monitors had continuous real-time tracking of Chuck –

An irrational surge of jealousy shot through Sarah as she realized where Chuck was. _Palo Alto, California_, the readout said.

He was with Jill. Sarah knew that he was just recruiting her. Sarah knew that, as a professional, she needed to do everything possible to support that part of the mission.

Nonetheless… Sarah Walker had just become a very unhappy woman.


	9. Miserable Lie

_**Chuck vs. the Con**_

**Chapter 9 – "Miserable Lie"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Jill Roberts – Jordana Brewster  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Rowan Montgomery – John Larroquette  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Deborah Goldman – Bar Refaeli  
Yoshiro Matsuki – James Kyson Lee

* * *

_**Burbank, California  
July 2003**_

_Chuck Bartowski slowly walked down Magnolia Boulevard away from the post office. Old Town Burbank was really quite nice at this time of year, if you were paying attention – which Chuck Bartowski was not._

_He trudged westward down the street, under the shade of the canopy of magnolia trees, back toward the bus stop at the Hollywood Way intersection. His visits to the post office had become a bit of a concern for the people who knew him, because every time, he took with him a picture of him and Jill. Those pictures always had a postcard stamp on the back, and they were always addressed to her at Stanford, except for this last one, which was addressed to her parents' house in Seattle._

_This was probably the twentieth time he had done this since Jill had dumped him, and never once had he heard anything back from her. Nonetheless, he had continued to do it, even after having his Herder privileges suspended by Big Mike and having to resort to the Metro to get to and from the post office._

_Each time, he swore it would be the last time, but this time, he had decided that it truly would be. When even Morgan was telling him that it was time to move on, then perhaps it indeed was._

_Chuck slipped the earbuds for his iPod into his ears. Looking down at the music player, he scrolled through the artist list until he reached the Smiths. Pressing the play button, he let the music carry him away._

"_There's something against us… it's not time… it's not time… so goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye."_

* * *

**Palo Alto, California  
One Week Till Thanksgiving**

The look on Jill Roberts' face could almost be described as comical, such was her shock at seeing Chuck Bartowski. "Chuck?" she asked quietly, almost as if she didn't believe the sight of the man standing in front of her.

A small smile broke onto Chuck's face. "Long time, no see, huh?"

Setting her messenger bag down on the table at the front of the lecture hall, Jill approached him slowly. "What – what are you doing here?"

Chuck sighed. "Well, in part, because I suck at biochem," he replied, "and in part, because of something that you're really going to need to be sitting down, with a drink in your hand, for me to go over with you."

Jill raised an eyebrow. "What exactly could be that serious?"

Chuck looked at the ceiling and braced himself. "Well, Jill… I don't even know where to start…"

"The beginning would be a good place," Jill replied dryly.

"Alright," Chuck said, his gaze coming down and locking with Jill's. "You see, Jill… it turns out… I'm pregnant, and the child is yours."

Chuck's voice sounded so serious, and his face looked so sincere, that it took a moment for the words to register with Jill, but when they did, she started laughing. It didn't take long for Chuck to join in.

"Wow," Jill finally said, removing her glasses to wipe her eyes. "Oh my goodness… I have to admit, I have really missed your sense of humor."

"It is one of a kind," Chuck replied with a smile. "But seriously. What I really need to talk to you about –"

"Oh, shit," Jill interrupted him. "I've got to be at my next class in five minutes. Walk with me."

"O-okay," Chuck complied. Jill swept out of the classroom, messenger bag over her shoulder, Chuck in her wake.

"So," Jill said as she walked, "what is so important that you think I need to be sitting down with a drink in hand?"

Chuck shook his head. "I can't talk about it here," he replied. "Just suffice it to say – it's gonna be necessary."

Jill stopped and looked at him, a half-amused look on her face. "Just when did you get so secretive, Chuck Bartowski?"

The smile melted from Chuck's face. "You have no idea," he replied softly.

Slightly confused, Jill resumed walking. "Okay," she said. "Well, I guess this must really be important."

They entered another building, and Jill stopped in front of a classroom door. "This is my class," she told Chuck. "I tell you what. Meet me tonight at Lavanda Wine Bar – it's just a couple of blocks off campus. Do you remember where it is?"

Chuck raised an eyebrow. "Jill, do you honestly think I frequented wine bars when I was here as a student?"

An amused smile reappeared on Jill's face. "I suppose not," she said. "185 University. 7:00 PM. Don't be late."

With that, she pushed open the door to the classroom, but before Chuck could turn to go, Jill stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. "It's good to see you again, Chuck," she said softly, as her class broke into a spontaneous round of applause.

Chuck turned bright red, and it wasn't until the door swung shut, with Jill on the other side, that he was able to move. He turned away from the door –

To find John Casey and Rowan Montgomery just inside the door to the building, waiting for him. "Not bad, Romeo," Casey snarked.

Montgomery, on the other hand, looked impressed. "Charles, I don't understand how you do it," he said. "You're a total nerd, not exactly the ladies' type – no offense – and yet, not only do you have Agent Walker under your thumb, but it appears that Doctor Roberts there wouldn't mind another taste of the Intersect."

Casey's head whipped around. "How 'bout you can it with the Intersect business, Montgomery," he growled. "This place is crawling with potential CIA, and for all we know, Fulcrum."

Montgomery rolled his eyes. "There's no danger, and you know it, Casey," he shot back. "I'm just complimenting the boy on his seemingly effortless, and likely clueless, lady-killing skills."

"Alright," Casey acquiesced. "I'll give you that."

* * *

**Frazier Park, California**

Casey was going to be pissed.

Sarah slowly horsed the old Crown Victoria into the parking lot of the Flying J truckstop just off the I-5 freeway. Steam poured from under its hood, the thermostat reading dangerously close to critical.

Switching the engine off, Sarah turned the ignition switch to accessories and turned the fan on full blast, trying to suck some of the heat off of the engine. She looked over at Mott Matsuki. "Any thoughts?"

He shook his head. "I do guns, not engines," he replied. "Sorry."

"I'll take a look," Deborah Goldman said. "I grew up near a _kibbutz_, and I'm somewhat familiar with the workings of an engine – although I know diesels better."

_Couldn't hurt_, Sarah thought. Reaching down under the dashboard, she grabbed the hood release and pulled. The hood cracked open, and a great cloud of steam billowed out from underneath. Deborah pulled the hood the rest of the way open, and waved the remaining steam away. "Well, HERE's your problem!" she shouted.

Sarah got out of the car and walked around to the front end. "Engine coolant intake hose popped off the radiator," Deborah said to Sarah, pointing. Sure enough, a hose had come off the radiator, and green liquid was dripping out its open end.

"Any ideas?" Sarah asked. Cars were not HER thing, either.

"Oh, this is simple," Deborah replied. "Thermostat's bad. Didn't open when it was supposed to, the coolant backflow built up too much pressure, and the hose blew off. Simple enough to replace."

"Really," Sarah deadpanned. "Are you telling me you didn't hear the dueling banjos as we got off the freeway?"

Deborah rolled her eyes. "Agent Walker, this is a truckstop. There are bound to be at least two, maybe more, auto supply shops within five minutes' walk. It's just the way things are."

"Okay," Sarah replied, as Deborah headed for the convenience store. Pulling out her phone, she dialed John Casey. Three rings later – "_Casey, secure_."

"Walker, secure," Sarah replied. "Hey, listen, your car's a piece of crap."

There was silence on the other end for a moment. "_I beg your pardon?!_"

Sarah grinned. "It blew a radiator hose coming up the Grapevine," she replied. "Bad thermostat, apparently."

Casey was silent again. Finally, he said, "_And exactly why are you driving my car?_"

"Because a Mossad agent, a former Yakuza bodyguard, and I won't all fit in my Porsche," she replied. "Besides, you left the Crown Vic in Palm Desert, and I needed wheels."

"_Oookay_," Casey said slowly. "_So, why are you driving north on the 5? I mean, aside from the obvious, that you know where we are. You're not thinking about causing trouble, are you?_"

Sarah was taken aback. Was she thinking of causing trouble? She had always sort of envisioned meeting Jill, and the piece of her mind that she would give the woman who broke Chuck's heart when she did so. Apparently, her silence led Casey to draw the conclusion that trouble lay in the immediate future, because he said, "_Walker, he is JUST recruiting her. He is not playing hide the Intersect with her._"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Well, thank you for that reassuring piece of intel, Casey," she replied. "However, I would like to personally observe my asset when he attempts to recruit somebody."

Casey chuckled. "_Yeah, I bet you WOULD like to personally observe your asset._"

Sarah sighed and hung up the phone, just as Deborah came out of the store, a triumphant grin on her face. "Carquest supplier, right across the street!" she chirped.

Sarah shook her head as she turned to follow the far-too-perky Mossad agent. "I'm gonna kill my sisters," she muttered.

* * *

**Lavanda Wine Bar  
Palo Alto, California**

Chuck walked into the wine bar at 6:59 PM and looked around. He quickly spotted Jill waving to him, and headed in her direction.

"Hi, Chuck!" she said happily as he walked up to her table. Chuck cocked his head at the sound of her voice, and then noticed the half-empty bottle of cabernet sauvignon on the table.

"I guess you got started without me, huh?" he asked with a grin.

Jill shrugged. "Well, you said I needed to be sitting down, and that I should have a drink in my hand, so I figured it couldn't help to be well prepared when you got here."

"Fair enough," Chuck replied, sitting down across the table from Jill. "So, the reason I needed to talk to you –"

Jill held up a hand, interrupting him. "Wait a second," she said. "Before you get started, there's something I wanted to show you."

Confused, Chuck stopped. Jill lifted her purse up onto the table and opened it, digging around for a moment, and finally pulling out an envelope, which she set on the table in front of Chuck. "Open it," she told him.

Chuck picked up the envelope and opened it – and nearly dropped it when he saw what was inside. "Oh my God," he whispered. "You kept them."

"Yes I did," Jill replied, taking a drink from her wineglass. "All twenty of them. Every single one."

Chuck smiled and shook his head. "I figured you would've burned them," he said, setting the postmarked pictures of him and Jill back down on the table.

"Nah," Jill said. "I mean, maybe we didn't end under the best of circumstances –"

"Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun ended under better circumstances," Chuck muttered, drawing a dirty look from Jill.

"Seriously," she said. "I still missed you, though. You had been part of my life for so long, and you were suddenly gone – I must've read each one a hundred times. I was even able to figure out what music you were listening to when you wrote each one."

Chuck scoffed. "Oh, come on."

"No, really!" Jill insisted. "This one," she said, picking up a picture of her and Chuck at, of all places, Bryce Canyon National Park, "you were listening to U2. 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For'."

The fact of the matter was that Chuck remembered exactly what song he had been listening to when he wrote each one, and Jill was exactly correct. "That's right," he confirmed.

"And this one, I'm thinking Metallica," Jill continued, picking up one of the two of them overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. "Specifically, 'Nothing Else Matters'." She gave Chuck a concerned look. "You were really depressed, weren't you?"

Chuck nodded. "That's putting it gently," he said.

She picked up the last one he had sent. "The Smiths, 'Miserable Lie'," she continued. "Right?"

"Oh yeah," Chuck said. "That one was a real fun one."

Jill was quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry," she said, looking down at the table. "I really never wanted to hurt you."

Chuck shrugged. "You know, time helps heal a lot," he replied. "It has been five and a half years."

Jill looked back up at him. "So… do you forgive me?"

"Absolutely," Chuck replied with a smile.

A smile reappeared on Jill's face. "Oh, good," she said. "So… what was it that you needed to talk to me about?"

"Well," Chuck said, "here's the thing. You see, I'm, uh, working for a, uh, government agency now, and we need the help of a –"

His voice cut off as the door opened. "Oh, crap," he uttered. Suddenly he found himself with a bizarre desire for an invisibility cloak.

"Chuck?" Jill asked, concern in her voice. "What is it?"

Chuck just sighed and braced himself for what he knew was about to come. "Hello, Chuck," Sarah Walker said as she walked up to the table.

Jill looked from Chuck to Sarah and back to Chuck. "Chuck, who is this?"

Chuck gritted his teeth and sighed. "Jill, this is Sarah Walker, my… girlfriend. Sarah, this is Doctor Jill Roberts, my ex-girlfriend."

At the word _girlfriend_, Jill's eyes snapped upward toward Sarah, as she went into what Casey would have called "threat assessment mode". Sarah acted almost exactly the same way. Chuck fought a distinct urge to beat his head against the table as the two women sized each other up.

"Well," Jill finally said, her voice wooden, "I can see when I'm a third wheel." Sweeping the pile of pictures into her purse, she stood up from the table and stalked off.

"Jill!" Chuck called, standing up quickly. "Wait, I can explain!"

The only response he got from Jill was her right hand going up in the air, its middle finger extended stiffly upward. Chuck sighed and sank back down into his chair, as Sarah sat down where Jill had been sitting.

"Well," she said, "that looked like fun." She looked at Chuck and smiled. "Did you get her?"

Chuck gave Sarah a look of death. "I was just about to tell her about the mission when you made your grand entrance," he snapped. "Thank you so much."

Then, another painful moment of realization hit Chuck, and he groaned in despair. Slowly, his head sank down until his forehead touched the table. "She left me with the tab."


	10. Silence! I KILL YOU!

_**Chuck vs. the Con**_

**Chapter 10 – "Silence! I KILL YOU!"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer  
Jill Roberts – Jordana Brewster  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Rowan Montgomery – John Larroquette

* * *

_**Palo Alto, California**__  
__**May 2003**_

_Chuck Bartowski couldn't believe it. Reeling from the shock of what he'd just been told he stumbled down Greek Row, away from Jill's sorority house._

_Cheating on him? With Bryce Larkin?! The same person who had gotten Chuck kicked out of Stanford in the first place?!_

_This was just too much. Chuck stopped and closed his eyes for a moment. Steeling himself, he re-opened his eyes and looked at his watch._

_3:30 PM. Bryce would be getting out of Architecture 480 in about five minutes. If Chuck moved quickly, he could be there, waiting outside the classroom when the back-stabbing son of a bitch came out._

_Like a man possessed, Chuck started walking, then jogging toward the architecture building. Four minutes later, he was there, standing outside the doors to the lecture hall, when the doors opened and the class came pouring out._

_Bryce wasn't paying attention when he walked out of the classroom, and that made it that much easier for Chuck to walk up to him. "Hey, asshole!" Chuck snapped, just before his fist made contact with Bryce's jaw._

_Bryce's head came up, just in time for recognition and surprise to register before he was knocked backward. Bryce staggered and fell over, his textbook and notebooks spilling to the floor._

_There was a collective gasp from the students around them, and they all backed away, forming a sort of ring around Chuck and Bryce. Chuck glared down at Bryce, who brought his right hand up to his lower lip. The hand came away bloody._

_Bryce looked up at Chuck – but instead of the rage that Chuck expected to see in his former friend's eyes, he saw nothing but pain and sorrow. Chuck was thrown by the unexpected emotions on Bryce's face._

_As he took in those emotions, something came over him. This wasn't right. It wasn't worth it. Chuck sighed._

"_You're not worth my trouble," he said softly, and turned away. Pushing through the gathered crowd, he beat a hasty retreat._

"_Chuck!" he heard Bryce call as he departed. "CHUCK!"_

_Chuck ignored Bryce Larkin. If he was lucky, he would never see him again._

* * *

**Palo Alto, California  
One week till Thanksgiving**

Chuck Bartowski stormed out of the wine bar, his wallet thirty dollars lighter. "Fanfuckingtastic," he groused as he exited out onto the street.

He looked down the street – and there, a block away, he could see Jill getting into her car. "JILL!" he shouted, running down the street.

As he took off running, Sarah Walker burst out of the wine bar behind him. "Dammit, Chuck!" she yelled as she took off running after him.

Jill heard Chuck yell, and just shook her head. She started to get into her car, so Chuck yelled, "No, JILL, WAIT!"

Jill wasn't about to wait. Climbing into her car, she pulled the door shut, and turned the ignition –

With no result. Nothing happened except the starter going _click-click-click_.

That gave Chuck enough time to reach the car. "Jill!" he called. "I can explain!"

Jill glared at Chuck, then turned her key again. Still nothing.

Chuck heard the clicking coming from under the hood, and looked up at the approaching Sarah Walker, a question on his face. An apologetic look on her face, Sarah nodded.

"Oh, God DAMMIT!" Chuck growled. "I do not BELIEVE you sometimes!"

The look on Sarah's face turned from apologetic to hurt and confused. "Sorry," she muttered as she turned away from Chuck.

Chuck sighed and dug into his pocket. Coming out with his wallet, he pulled out his Auto Club card, which he held up for Jill to see. "Will this help?" he asked, loud enough for her to hear through the window.

Jill made a face, but nonetheless nodded. Opening the door, she got out of the car, and gave Chuck a dirty look. "You're a dick sometimes, you know that?" she asked angrily.

"I'm sorry," Chuck replied. "I really wasn't trying to lead you on. I actually came here to offer you a job – and, I guess, the nostalgia of seeing you just sort of made me wish that things were still the way they used to be."

Jill narrowed her eyes. "A job?" she asked. "What kind of job?"

"A government job," Chuck said. "I work for the government. So does she, actually," he said, pointing to Sarah. "And, while I'm on the subject, she's not ACTUALLY my girlfriend. It's just a cover for our jobs."

It wasn't the words that hurt Sarah. Just the words, she would've been okay with. It was the tone of Chuck's voice – the fact that he sounded completely dismissive, seeming to imply to Jill that Sarah didn't really mean anything to him.

Fighting the tears that were stinging her eyes, Sarah turned around. "Do you need me here?" she asked, fighting down the lump building in her throat.

"Not really," Chuck replied, without actually looking at her.

Sarah tried to say something, but her voice failed her, so she simply nodded and started walking away. _Goddammit, shit, sonofabitch_! her voice raged in her head. How the HELL did she screw that up?

The look on her face must have been particularly awful, because when she reached the van that John Casey and Rowan Montgomery were in, they both got out, looking at her in concern. "What the hell happened?" Casey asked.

Montgomery looked from Sarah to Casey and then back again. "John, you have to learn the looks of women's faces," he said. "Unless I'm completely mistaken, Agent Walker here just got rejected by Mr. Bartowski in favor of Dr. Roberts."

Montgomery's words hit Sarah like a punch to the stomach. Enraged, she looked over at him, and spat, "What the hell would you know, you wrinkled old man whore?"

A slight smile appeared on Montgomery's face as he looked over at Casey. "It would seem I'm right," he said.

And with that, Sarah Walker decided that she, too, had just about had it with Rowan Montgomery. However, unlike Chuck Bartowski, she didn't go after him with a right cross. No, instead, she went after Montgomery with a canister of pepper spray.

John Casey's eyes widened as he saw the pepper spray come up in Sarah's hand. Moving quickly, he got between Sarah and Montgomery, grabbing her right arm before the pepper spray became a problem.

"Calm down, Walker," he said quietly. "This is not going to do you any good."

* * *

Chuck looked up momentarily at the receding figure of Sarah Walker and sighed. He thought the world of her, but sometimes she could just be so goddamn infuriating. Either she did want to have something with him, or she didn't. She didn't get to have it both ways, but that was the way she seemed to have been operating for the past month – ever since her high school reunion in San Diego.

He looked back at Jill. The anger seemed to be slowly draining from her face. "So, why are you recruiting me?" she asked.

Chuck bit his lip. He wasn't sure whether to sugarcoat the reality of what was going on, or tell Jill the truth straight out.

So, he decided to meet somewhere in the middle. "The, uh, task force I'm working with has received intel that Al Qaeda is going to buy anthrax samples from a rather unscrupulous scientist the lab at Northern Arizona University and use them against us. We have to stop them, but we need somebody with your particular skill set, seeing as how we're dealing with some pretty nasty stuff."

Despite the seeming lunacy of Chuck's words, Jill actually nodded as he spoke. "Okay," she said slowly. "That, to an extent, makes sense." Then she shook her head and looked up at Chuck. "But why me?"

"Well," Chuck replied, "because, in spite of, well, you know…"

"Yeah," Jill said, looking down.

"In spite of that, I still trust you," Chuck finished.

A small smile appeared on Jill's face. "Nice to know that my idiocy five years ago didn't affect the eternal Bartowski optimism."

Chuck's face blossomed into a full-blown grin. "Did you ever hear about what happened after you told me?"

Jill looked up, a disbelieving look on her face. "Are you kidding? Half the campus knew that Chuck Bartowski had punched out Bryce Larkin by that evening." The look of disbelief turned into a smile. "I have to say, I was amused, and a little bit touched."

Chuck's grin got a little bigger, and then slowly faded. "So… why'd you do it?"

The look on Jill's face grew troubled. "I don't know," she said with a sigh. "Maybe someday I'll figure it out."

* * *

**San Jose, California  
Six days till Thanksgiving**

Sarah sat on the tarmac of San Jose International Airport in Casey's Crown Vic, by herself. She had decided that she wanted to drive back to Los Angeles alone, claiming a need for time to think to the rest of the group. Casey had, surprisingly, acquiesced, simply begging that she not do any more damage to his car.

Chuck, Casey, Rowan, Deborah Goldman, Mott Matsuki, and Jill were all going to fly to L.A. on Rowan's jet. Jill had, apparently, managed to get emergency leave from the university, claiming a family issue of some sort.

And so, Sarah was waiting for the jet to take off before she headed back to Los Angeles. It wasn't a tough trip – just a straight shot down the 5, with the section over the Grapevine being the most worrisome. It was the emotions raging in her head that were going to make the trip difficult.

She watched the jet taxi to the runway, its identification lights blinking in the early-morning gloom. A moment later, it started moving forward, slowly at first, and then more rapidly. A moment later, it left the runway, climbing into the slowly lightening sky.

Sarah reached her hand to the gearshift and was about to put the Crown Vic into drive when the shotgun door opened. Alarmed, Sarah quickly had her gun up and pointed at the intruder –

Who, it turned out, was Jill Roberts. "Calm down," Jill said quietly, putting her hands up.

Much as Sarah really would've liked to smack Jill in the face with the business end of her Colt 1911, she instead sighed, brought the gun down, and holstered it. "Aren't you supposed to be on the plane?" she asked, her voice tight and controlled.

"That was the original plan, yes," Jill replied, climbing into the Crown Vic and buckling herself into the shotgun seat. "However, I think there's something that you and I need to talk about."

"I very much doubt that," Sarah replied. "I rarely have anything to talk about with backstabbing sluts."

Jill laughed in disbelief. "Oh, REALLY," she said. "Is that honestly what you think of me?" She turned and looked at Sarah, shaking her head. "You don't even KNOW me!"

"I know enough," Sarah shot back. "I know that you broke Chuck's heart, and then stomped on it." She laughed bitterly. "With Bryce Larkin, of all people."

"And what exactly does that mean?" Jill asked. "What the hell do you know about Bryce Larkin?"

"Well, I was in a relationship with him long enough to determine that he's a good guy ten percent of the time and a total toolbox the remainder," Sarah grumbled.

Surprisingly, Jill laughed. "Not too far off base there," she said.

"Then why?!" Sarah asked. "Why the hell would you hurt Chuck like that?"

Jill sighed, and bit her lip. "What if I told you that it was all an elaborate plot formulated by Bryce?"

Sarah cast a sideways glance at Jill. "If it were about anybody else, I'd say bullshit, but since this is Bryce, I don't think I'd be entirely surprised."

"Alright," Jill said. "Chuck doesn't know a thing about this, but here's what happened – Bryce came to me, and told me that I had to sever ALL ties with Chuck. Immediately. He said that if I didn't, the government was going to get hold of him and do horrible things to him."

Jill paused for a moment. "Then, Bryce told me that he was responsible for getting Chuck kicked out of Stanford, and that he did it to protect Chuck from the government too. He said that making Chuck think that I was cheating on him with Bryce was the most sure-fire way to get Chuck to leave me alone."

"So?" Sarah replied. "You've got a doctorate, for God's sake. That indicates to me that you have enough backbone that you could've said no to Bryce."

"Yeah, well, Bryce threatened to get me kicked out too if I didn't help," Jill said quietly. "And had I been kicked out of Stanford, my life as I knew it would essentially have been over."

"And you chose to essentially help end Chuck's instead," Sarah said angrily. "This is not making you look any better in my eyes."

"I had NO IDEA that Chuck was going to go into a five year ambition coma!" Jill exploded. "He was the most forward-thinking guy I ever knew, so how the FUCK was I supposed to know he would turn into Morgan Grimes, part two?!"

"I don't know," Sarah replied. "But you still really hurt him badly. It messed him up for a long time, and I don't know if I can readily forgive you for that."

"Like I need your forgiveness," Jill laughed. "The only person who I need to forgi-"

She cut herself off. "Wait a minute," she said, realization dawning. "That episode back there on the street – you really care about him, don't you?"

_Oh, SHIT_, Sarah thought. "He's my asset," she replied. "He's my friend, too. Of course I care about him."

"Oh, come on," Jill shot back. "He's not just your asset or a friend. You're in LOVE with him, aren't you?!"

"No," Sarah said. "I can't be. I'm not allowed to be."

"Please," Jill protested. "Screw what the government tells you. There are more important things in life."

Sarah remained silent, fixing her attention on the freeway in front of her. "Fine," Jill said. "If you're going to insist that there's nothing between you, then I guess Chuck is fair game."

Sarah tried to remain calm, but her hands betrayed her. They tightened around the Crown Vic's steering wheel, her knuckles turning white. "And that right there was the sign I was looking for," Jill continued, a rather pleased note in her voice. "I'm VERY good with observing people, Agent Walker, and the signs are written ALL OVER you."

Jill turned to face the windshield. "Six days."

Sarah's brow furrowed. "What?"

"Six days," Jill repeated. "Until Thanksgiving. That's how long I'm giving you to tell Chuck how you feel about him, because I think he feels that way about you, too. I want to see him happy, and from what little I've seen, I think the two of you could make it work.

"HOWEVER," Jill continued, "should you choose NOT to take this gift-wrapped opportunity, then I'm going to. Chuck is a great guy, and if I have the chance to rectify a mistake I made years ago, you'd better believe I'm going to try to do so."

Sarah slowly inhaled, and then exhaled. "If you think you have a chance to fix things, why aren't you just taking it?"

"Because," Jill replied. "I don't know if Chuck could ever truly be happy with me, and if he really has a chance to be happy with somebody, then I think he should take it."

Then Jill turned to face Sarah, and her voice turned hard. "But so help me God, Agent Walker, if you hurt him in any way…"

Jill sat back in her seat. "Let's just say that it won't be pretty."

And for the first time in years, Sarah Walker actually found herself quite scared of a threat.


	11. Let the Games Begin

_**Chuck vs. the Con**_

**Chapter 11 – "Let the Games Begin"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Devon Woodcomb – Ryan McPartlin  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Jill Roberts – Jordana Brewster  
Yoshiro Matsuki – James Kyson Lee  
Deborah Goldman – Bar Refaeli  
Roan Montgomery – John Larroquette

* * *

It turned out to be somewhat harder to assemble the rest of the team than Chuck thought. After Jill came onboard, things ground to a screeching halt. Bryce and Carina were both unavailable. As a result, their places on the team were taken by Roan Montgomery's two protectors – Deborah Goldman and Yoshiro Matsuki.

And then, when it came to medical doctors, there was no way that Chuck was going to be able to drag both Ellie and Devon into something like this so close to Thanksgiving. Ellie was having a gigantic spazgasm as a result of the impending arrival of Woody and Honey Woodcomb, and the idea of pulling her away from her preparations was something that Chuck didn't think that even the Unabomber would be wise to attempt.

Devon, on the other hand…

* * *

**Los Angeles, California  
Five Days till Thanksgiving  
8:00 AM**

Devon Woodcomb was exhausted. He had just pulled a triple-shift at the hospital, and hadn't seen his fiancée… his shower… his bed… in twenty-four hours. He was hoping to see all three, in that order – and if the first wanted to join him in the second and the third, then so much the better.

Ordinarily, he would've considered it AWESOME, even in his head – but the fact was, he was so tired that he couldn't even come up with an awesome for that. He was so far beyond comprehending anything at all that he didn't even notice Chuck calling his name from the door of John Casey's apartment. It took Casey crossing the courtyard and physically grabbing Devon by the arm to get his attention.

"Morning, Devon," John Casey said, gently steering the doctor off of his trajectory toward the door to Casa Bartowski and redirecting him toward his own apartment. Devon looked at Casey in confusion, and the confusion grew even deeper as he saw Chuck standing in the door to Casey's apartment.

"Chuck?" Devon asked tiredly. "What the hell is going on here?"

Chuck sighed. "There are some things that you need to know, Devon," he replied. "You need to sit down."

As he sank down into the over-stuffed armchair, Devon looked around, and despite his weariness, realized that Casey's apartment was a veritable beehive of activity. Sarah Walker was sitting on the couch opposite him. A brunette who looked vaguely familiar sat next to Sarah. An Asian man was perched on the breakfast bar, and behind him, a rather attractive blonde was moving about, and from the smell, was making a pot of coffee.

"Guys," he said, "again, what's going on?"

"Devon," Sarah said, "what I'm about to tell you, you absolutely cannot tell Ellie. You can't tell anybody. Do you understand?"

Devon frowned. "What exactly would you tell me that I can't tell Ellie?" He turned and looked at Chuck. "And what are you doing involved with something you can't tell your own sister about?"

Chuck sighed. "I work for the government, Devon. I'm part of a classified computer development program."

"What?" Now Devon looked confused. "I… so… Sarah?"

"I'm part of it too, Devon," she replied, "and so is John. Chuck is actually the key player in the whole thing."

Devon looked from Sarah to Casey to Chuck. "So… you're not actually a loser who works at the Buy More?"

Chuck frowned. "Loser? Uh, no. That's just, um, a cover."

Devon's eyes widened – and then, a grin spread across his face. "Dude… AWESOME!" With that, his hand went airborne, in position for a high five.

A weak laugh made its way out of Chuck, and he returned the high five. "I can't believe it," Devon said. "I have James Bond living in my apartment!"

"Not quite," Chuck sighed. "Besides, he works for MI-6. I work for the CIA."

"Same thing, different governments," Devon replied with a shrug. Behind him, John Casey sighed and rolled his eyes.

But then – "Wait a second," Devon said, his gaze turning back toward Sarah and turning into a glare. "You said you work for them, Sarah. So, what does that mean for you and Chuck? Was that all a ruse? A, I don't know, a 'cover'?"

Chuck looked at Devon – and then looked over at Sarah, a look of interest on his face. _Moment of truth, Sarah_, he thought, as he watched her turn bright red.

"Uh, I, uh, I really, well… it's… complicated?" she offered weakly.

"Suuuure," Devon drawled. "You can say whatever you want, but the blood rushing to your face as a reaction to being called out on your situation doesn't lie." He leaned toward the CIA agent and grinned. "You want him bad, don't you?"

Sarah's eyes widened, and a look of panic spread across her face. She turned toward Chuck, and he could read the unspoken entreaty on her face – _HELP_.

"Devon," Chuck said, stepping in, "anything outside the bounds of the mission is strictly between me and Sarah. We have other, somewhat more important things to talk about right now."

Devon looked from Chuck to Sarah, and back again, the look on his face showing that he wasn't sure whether or not to believe his brother-in-law-to-be. "Alright," he finally said, and Sarah let out her breath in relief. "What's going on?"

"We have to stop a group of terrorists from getting their hands on some anthrax," Sarah said. "This is actually a mission that's being carried out by a private citizen, with support from the government. We've got most of the necessary personnel – a front man, drivers, muscle, even our own biochemist – Dr. Jill Roberts."

She indicated the brunette sitting next to her on the couch. "Jill Roberts," Devon mused. "I know that name."

"Not now, Devon," Chuck muttered.

"No, dude, I know that – yeah! Jill the bitch! The one who dumped you!"

Chuck sighed and turned away from Devon. "I knew we should've waited till after he'd gotten some sleep," he grumbled.

"We need to get him in now," Casey shot back. "The hijacking is supposed to be happening tomorrow."

Meanwhile, Jill had turned a very frosty glare on Devon. "I will have you know, I am NOT a bitch," she growled. "I was manipulated. It wasn't my fault."

"Please," Devon retorted. "Thanks to you, Chuck spent five years of his life pretending he was Howard Hughes."

"Dude!" Chuck yelled, turning back toward Devon. "Seriously. Loser? Howard Hughes? Here I always thought you had some modicum of respect for me!"

"I do, Chuck!" Devon shot back, turning around. "It's just, now, knowing that you work for the CIA? I mean, seriously, the guy I thought you were seems like a total schmuck in comparison to who you actually are!"

"Oh," Chuck said, slightly taken aback. "Well… uh, thanks, I guess."

Devon nodded, then turned back toward Jill. "Not cool," he said, pointing at her.

"Devon!" Sarah snapped. "Focus!"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied.

Sarah sighed. "Anyway. Tomorrow afternoon, two armored trucks will arrive at the Wettaw Biochemistry Center at Northern Arizona University to take possession of the anthrax samples. We will be… diverting the shipment. We need a medical doctor, just in case. That's where you come in."

Devon frowned, looking from Sarah to Chuck. "Seriously?"

Chuck nodded. "You're a cardiothoracic surgeon," Chuck replied. "That's pretty much ideal for the types of injuries that can occur on a mission like this."

"Um…" Devon sighed, and his head dropped. "Wow. Uh, you think I can sleep on this?"

"Depends on how long you're planning to sleep for," Casey said. "We need an answer… stat, as you might say."

"This afternoon?" Devon turned and looked up at the NSA agent. "Dude, I haven't slept since yesterday morning. I can't think straight right now."

"That'll be fine, Devon," Sarah interjected, before Casey could get grumpy. "But we need to know as soon as possible, all right?"

"Yeah," Devon said, suddenly feeling very tired again. "Um, see you guys later?"

"Later, Devon," Chuck said, as Sarah nodded. Devon picked himself up out of the chair, and headed to the door –

Which was opened just before he reached it. The man standing on the stoop looked in at Devon, and a look of amazement crossed his face. "Devon, my boy!" he boomed. "Is that you?"

Devon's eyes went wide as saucers, and his jaw dropped. "UNCLE ROAN?!"

"Wait, WHAT?!" Chuck gasped. "What do you mean, 'Uncle Roan'?!"

Devon turned back toward Chuck, an astonished look on his face. "Uh, Roan Montgomery," he replied weakly, pointing at the retired spy. "He's, uh, he's my mom's brother."

Chuck looked from Devon to Sarah to Casey. "Oh, joy."

* * *

Roan Montgomery had been left to explain the particulars of the mission to his nephew, who had decided to join in after running into his uncle. Chuck, meanwhile, had decided to retreat to his bedroom – someplace he had spent decidedly far too little time lately.

As he lay on his bed, his open copy of _Watchmen_ covering his face, Chuck heard a faint tap on the Morgan Door. "It's open," he called, his voice muffled by the graphic novel.

He heard the window slide open, and then heard somebody climb up and through. He didn't say anything – the very faint scent of the body wash that Sarah Walker always used carried across the room to him.

She also didn't say anything, although he felt the bed shift as she sat down on the edge. With a sigh, Chuck pulled the book off his face. "Hey," he said.

Sarah turned to look at him. "Hey," she replied, the corners of her mouth twitching upward.

"Look," Chuck began, taking a deep breath. "I don't know how to keep doing this. It seems like every time we start to connect on more than a professional level, one of us freaks out and runs, and no offense, but it's you way more than it is me." He stopped and looked Sarah in the eyes. "And then, you do something like your little stunt in Palo Alto. Showing up at the wine bar, disabling Jill's car – what was that all about?"

A blush slowly began to make its way up the back of Sarah's neck. "I… don't really know," she admitted quietly. "It wasn't tactically necessary for me to do either. In fact, the more I think about it, it probably would've been easier for you to get her involved if I had just stayed uninvolved."

Chuck studied Sarah for a moment. "Can I ask you something – it's not about your past, it's about right here, right now – and you'll answer honestly?"

Sarah bit her lip. "I'll do my best," she replied quietly.

Chuck nodded. Her best would have to do. "Did you get involved because of your feelings for me?"

Sarah locked eyes with Chuck again. "What do you mean?"

"What I mean," Chuck replied, the barest of smiles beginning to make its way onto his face, "is, were you acting out of jealousy, Sarah Walker?"

She was silent for what felt like an eternity. Finally, she muttered, "I suppose it's possible."

Chuck's smile got even bigger. "So every time you say that it's just a cover, that we have to be professional, you're kind of full of it?"

He had Sarah in a corner, and she knew it. At this point, she had only two options, and neither of them were particularly appealing. On the one hand, she could deny everything Chuck had just said, and put even more distance between them. On the other hand, she could simply eliminate that distance, and risk not only getting into serious trouble, but seeing their relationship turn into a disaster and destroy the friendship she had.

And yet, the potential positives of the second option far outweighed the positives of the first. So Sarah Walker decided to simply eliminate the distance.

"Yeah," she said with a nod, a smile appearing on her face. "Completely full of it."

The smile on Chuck's face turned into a full-blown grin. "See, I knew it," he replied. "I'm just that good, huh?"

Unfortunately for Chuck, there was a throw pillow sitting on the floor by the foot of his bed. In one fluid motion, Sarah leaned down, lifted the pillow, and flung it at Chuck. He yelped and ducked, and as he did so, Sarah leapt for the kill.

"GAH! HAVE MERCY!" Chuck whimpered as Sarah's fingertips dug into his extremely ticklish side.

"Mercy?" she giggled. "A moment ago, you were saying you were just that good. What happened, Mr. Bartowski?"

But instead of replying verbally, Chuck made a bold move – he reached up the hand that wasn't trying to ward off Sarah's tickling attack, placed it behind the back of her neck, and pulled her down to him. The tickling stopped immediately, and her eyes closed involuntarily –

Only for her to realize that Chuck wasn't kissing her. His face was less than an inch from hers, but he was very deliberately not making contact with her.

Slowly, her eyes flickered open again. "Chuck?"

He looked back at her, his eyes boring deep into hers. "What changed?" he whispered. "What made you decide to give in?"

She looked back at him, realizing just how heavily she was breathing. "Jill," she finally replied. "She gave me an ultimatum. Confess how I feel about you, or she was going to make a move."

Chuck raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?" he asked, smiling. "Jill got you to do this?"

"Yeah, something like that," Sarah replied. "But it WAS my decision."

"Is that so, Agent Walker," Chuck said, VERY slowly starting to do his ridiculous Bartowski eyebrow dance. "So, how exactly DO you feel about me?"

Sarah's breath caught in her throat. How _did_ she feel about him. "I… uh, I, uh, l… uh, I lo… oh, screw it."

Though words failed her, her actions did not, as she brought her hands up to the sides of Chuck's face, and pulled him the rest of the way to her. Her lips met his almost like two magnets attracted to one another. She felt his mouth part slightly, and the bare contact of his tongue against her lips was like an electric shock. A tiny moan ran through her as her own lips parted –

"Ah-HA!" Roan Montgomery exclaimed, the door to Chuck's bedroom crashing open. Sarah was so startled that she jumped off of Chuck – and fell directly to the floor.

She peeked up over the edge of Chuck's bed, as Chuck turned to look at Roan Montgomery and Devon Woodcomb, both looking at the two of them with far too smug looks on their faces. "You see, I knew there was something about these two the first time I met them," Montgomery explained to his nephew. "They worked far too well together."

An angry look appeared on Chuck's face. "Could you two please LEAVE for a moment?"

Montgomery held up his hands in surrender. "But of course, Charles," he replied, backing toward the door. "Devon, shall we?"

Sarah bit her lip and held her breath as the door swung shut – but once the latch clicked, she couldn't hold back any longer. It came out as giggles at first, but before long, she was leaning against the bed, laughing hysterically.

"I don't understand," Chuck said, looking at her in disbelief. "What's so damn funny?"

Sarah shook her head. "How about the fact that I'm in love with you?"

Chuck's eyes practically popped out of his head and his jaw dropped. "I'm – uh, do who with the what now?!"

"Just lock the door," Sarah instructed. Chuck moved with surprising alacrity to do just that, as Sarah crawled onto the bed. "Now," Sarah asked, "where were we?"

Chuck grinned. "Right about… here."

* * *

The Fulcrum agent sighed as the binoculars dropped, a disgusted roll of the eyes and a smirk evidence to the ridiculousness of the situation. A hand went into a pocket, and a cell phone came back out.

"Yes, sir. This is Pegasus."

Silence. "No, sir. Walker and Bartowski appear to be… um… rather involved."

More silence. "Yes, sir. I'll attempt to make sure that no harm comes to her. Yes, sir, I understand."

The agent sighed, hanging up the phone. "Too bad for you, Chuck Bartowski. Should've never tried to double-cross the Mob."


	12. It's About Damn Time

_**Chuck vs. the Con**_

**Chapter 12 – "It's About Damn Time"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Driver #1 – Seth Rogen  
Driver #2 – Jonah Hill  
Dr. Oleg Karimov – Robert "Rob Zombie" Cummings  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Mob Goon #1 – John Cenatiempo  
Mob Goon #2 – Michael Imperioli  
Jill Roberts – Jordana Brewster

* * *

**The NAU Wettaw Biochemistry Center  
60 W. Dupont Avenue, Flagstaff, Arizona  
4:30 AM, Mountain Standard Time  
One Day Till Thanksgiving**

At 4:30 in the morning, the campus of Northern Arizona University is one of the quietest places in Arizona. The night cleaning crews have gone home, but the students are still an hour or more from waking up.

Occasionally, a train passing by just south of Route 66 will split the night with its horn, but otherwise, the campus is a quiet enough place that the rumbling of two diesel engines coming south on Beaver Street was definitely a disturbance.

The two unmarked armored cars turned off of Beaver onto Dupont Avenue, pulling off the street and into the parking lot next to the Wettaw Biochemistry Center. Side by side, they backed up to the loading dock on the north face of the building, and shut off their engines.

A door in the side of the building opened, light spilling out into the pre-dawn darkness, as the drivers of the two trucks disembarked and headed toward the building.

"I TOLD you it was south of Butler," one of the drivers groused, shivering against the chill.

"Yeah, well, you also thought Flagstaff was within spitting distance of Phoenix," the other driver shot back. "Moron."

"Hey!" hissed Dr. Oleg Karimov. "Both of you shut up, will you? You'll draw attention!"

The first driver stopped and looked at Karimov, and then laughed. "From who, exactly?" He shook his head and gave Karimov a disdainful look. "Aside from classroom buildings, what's around here? A bank? A church? An elementary school? Not exactly occupied at this time of night."

Karimov's eyes narrowed, and he strode across the parking lot, anger etched on his face. Grabbing the driver by the collar, he slammed him against the side of his truck. "Let me tell you something, you pathetic little shit," he hissed. "You NEVER know who's watching. It could be ANYBODY, ANYWHERE."

The driver's eyes widened, and he put up his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright," he replied. "Jesus, man, calm down. It was a joke."

"Joke on your own time," Karimov spat. "We have a job to do."

* * *

**Arizona State Credit Union  
321 S. Beaver St., Flagstaff, Arizona**

Across the street from the Wettaw Building, a black-clad John Casey looked out the window through a pair of binoculars. "Well, holy shit," he muttered. "We got two armored cars, and they are, in fact, pulled up to the Wettaw Building."

"_So Silvestri's intelligence was good, then_," the disembodied voice of Diane Beckman sounded in his ear.

"Yes, ma'am. The drivers look like amateurs, too. It should be a piece of cake to take these assholes down."

Casey sat up in the back seat of the Crown Vic. It wasn't his Crown Vic – that would've stood out too much – but it would do. Switching the channel on his earpiece, he pressed the talk button. "Walker."

"_Go, Casey_."

"We've got the armored cars loading up right now."

"_Understood_."

"Is that goon your uncle sent still baby-sitting you and Bartowski?"

"_That's affirmative_."

"Alright. Well… shit. I guess it doesn't really matter, so long as you're ready to go when I give the word."

"_That we will be_."

* * *

It only took about fifteen minutes for the armored cars to be fully loaded. As soon as that task was complete, they pulled out of the parking lot. John Casey started his Crown Vic, and pulled out into Beaver Street, falling in behind the armored cars.

Five minutes later, the two cars were on Interstate 40 eastbound, with Casey right behind them. "I-40 east," he radioed. Five minutes after that, two more Crown Vics – both Arizona Highway Patrol surplus – fell in behind Casey.

"_Alright,_" Sarah said over the radio. "_Here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna pass the trucks, assess the situation –_" by which she meant, see if Chuck flashes on anything "_- and once we've got a firm tactical situation, we'll hit 'em._"

"Roger that," Casey replied, slowing down marginally as Sarah's Crown Vic pulled out into the left hand lane.

* * *

Sarah turned to look at Chuck, riding in the backseat. He simply looked bored, although the goon her uncle had sent along looked even more bored.

"You okay?" she asked Chuck.

He shrugged and smiled. "Super." The look in his eyes communicated that he'd be even better once this was done and he had Sarah back in his bedroom –

_Stop it_, she commanded herself, although she, too, let a smile come to her lips. The last few days had been unexpected and fun all at once. It had made her life so very much simpler to be able to really show Chuck how she felt about him.

Of course, she had been more relaxed in the last few days than she had been in the last year and a half. That probably had something to do with the fact that she was regularly getting laid – or, at least, that was her working assumption. And the reality was, Chuck did a rather respectable job in the sack – and there was a certain aspect of Chuck that had come as a VERY pleasant surprise.

The smile on her face got a little bit bigger at that thought. _He puts Bryce to shame, he really does_, she mused.

As she drew abreast of the rear truck, she glanced back at Chuck – and was alarmed to see him in the middle of a flash. _What the hell?!_ There was no possible way he should be flashing on something. This was not good.

When the flash ended, Chuck turned to Sarah, wide-eyed. She risked looking back at him again, and without saying anything, he pointed at the Mob goon riding in the shotgun seat, and then drew a hand across his throat.

Sarah blinked hard, and then turned back to watching the road ahead. Chuck wanted her to knock out the goon. He had to have a good reason.

Without warning, Sarah slammed her hand into the goon's face. Blood erupted from his nose, and before he could react, she put her hand behind his head and smashed his face into the dashboard – all without deviating an inch from her course down the road.

"Alright, Chuck, what did you flash on?" Sarah asked, urgency coloring her voice.

"Those trucks – they aren't going to some terrorist drop point," Chuck replied, his eyes even wider now. "They're a scheduled transport from NAU to the Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico."

And as quickly as Chuck had said that, Sarah stood on the Crown Vic's brakes. She pulled the old cop car off the freeway and into the grass median. "Abort, abort, abort!" she called into the radio.

"_Roger that_," she heard Casey say, but her blood ran cold when the goon driving the other car spoke.

"_Negative_," he insisted. "_Continue mission._"

"Not possible!" Sarah shot back. "We have to abort."

There was silence over the channel for a moment, and then the goon's voice came back. "_Let me rephrase_," he replied. "_Continue mission, or Drs. Roberts and Woodcomb die._"

The two other Crown Vics shot past, continuing down the freeway. "Fuck!" Sarah spat. "Fuck, goddammit, shit!"

"Sarah… what the hell are we gonna do?" Chuck asked plaintively, fear in his voice. "He's got Jill and Awesome in his car!"

Sarah closed her eyes, thinking for a moment – and then sprang into action. Reaching over, she opened the shotgun door of the Crown Vic, unbuckled the goon's seatbelt, and pushed him out into the grass. "Get up here and drive," she instructed Chuck, moving over to the shotgun seat.

"Uh… what?"

"CHUCK!"

Sarah's exclamation spurred him into motion. Jumping out the door, he ran around the car and hopped into the driver's seat. "Just tell me what to do," he said.

"DRIVE."

Chuck put the Crown Vic in gear and hit the gas, hopping it back up onto the freeway. The rear tires spun as they hit the pavement, causing the car to fishtail slightly, but Chuck held it straight and aimed toward the now-distant convoy of Crown Vics and armored cars.

Sarah keyed her radio. "Okay, Casey, Chuck, here's what we're gonna do," she said, talking both to her driver and to her partner, a mile down the road. "We need to get on either side of the car that Jill and Devon are in and make him slow down."

"_Just how do you propose we do that?_" Casey's voice came back.

Sarah smiled. "I'm going to have Chuck pull up next to him, shoot the driver, and then move into his car."

"Oh, what?!" Chuck gasped. "I have to drive to do THAT?!"

"You have a better idea?"

Chuck sighed. "I do not."

"_Better hurry, Walker. Looks like he's about ready to start a run on the armored cars._"

Chuck pushed the Crown Vic's accelerator to the floor, watching the speedometer creep upward, ever so slowly… 80… 85… 90…

The vibrations coming through the steering wheel were starting to make Chuck's arms numb, but he gripped the wheel like his life depended on it. And, in reality, Jill and Devon's lives BOTH depended on him doing this right.

He could see Casey's Crown Vic, in the right lane behind the armored cars, with the other Crown Vic right next to him, in the left lane. "Alright, Sarah, talk to me," Chuck said.

"Okay," Sarah replied. "Now, Chuck, I need you to trust me and do exactly as I say. Okay?"

Chuck sighed. "I'll try."

He felt Sarah grip his arm, and he looked over at her. "No, Chuck, you can't try. You have to DO this, or we will fail. Do you understand?"

Chuck was very still for a moment, and then nodded slowly. "Okay."

Sarah let out a small sigh of relief. "I want you to get behind the other Crown Vic, pull onto the shoulder, pull up next to it, and then smash it into Casey's car."

Chuck's eyes widened. "What?!"

"Chuck…"

"Good Lord," Chuck whispered. Shaking his head, he pulled the Crown Vic up behind the one in front of him. Devon and Jill both looked out the window at him. _Hold on_, he mouthed to them –

And then, Chuck jerked the Crown Vic's wheel to the left, feeling the front wheels bite into the rougher pavement on the shoulder. He punched the accelerator, causing the old cop car to jump forward. "Don't do it too early," Sarah warned him. "Unless you sideswipe him directly, you could cause him to spin out."

Chuck didn't say anything, just gritted his teeth and nodded, maintaining his white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. _Come on, come on_, he thought, looking over at the other Crown Vic. He could see the goon – _what was his name? Vic Marino?_ – gesticulating wildly with his gun.

Chuck drew even with the front seat of the other Crown Vic. _Please, God, let this work_ –

Chuck's Crown Vic smashed into the other Crown Vic, jostling its passengers, and luckily making Marino drop his gun. As it drifted toward the right hand side of the road, Casey brought his Crown Vic toward it and slammed into the passenger side, essentially sandwiching it between his Crown Vic and Chuck's.

"Alright, Chuck, this is the tricky part," Sarah warned.

"Oh, because that first part wasn't tricky?"

She turned and looked at him. "Just keep it straight," she instructed him. As she depressed the window button, she leaned over and kissed Chuck on the cheek. "For luck," she said, a small but cheeky grin appearing on her face.

"Go get 'em, Princess Leia," Chuck replied, a grin appearing on his own face in spite of the difficulty he was having keeping the Crown Vic moving straight forward.

Sarah turned toward the Crown Vic in the middle of the road. She could see Marino fumbling around, trying to find his gun, and trying to break his car free. _Too bad for you_, she thought, her Colt 1911 coming up.

With a harsh bark, the handgun discharged. The forty-five caliber bullet shattered the driver's window and impacted Marino's head right above the ear. A gout of blood, brain, and bone spouted out the other side of his head.

"DEVON!" Sarah shouted, over the roar of the ninety mile-per-hour wind whipping past.

Devon looked up, his face a mask of horror. "MOVE HIM!"

In spite of his shock, Devon did as she said. He unbuckled his seatbelt and reached forward, pulling Marino from the driver's seat. As soon as he did so, however, Marino's foot came off the accelerator. The Crown Vic began to slow, threatening to pull away from Chuck and Casey's cars.

"CHUCK, KEEP IT EVEN!" Sarah shouted.

Chuck took a deep breath, trying to ignore the ominous fluttering he was feeling in the steering wheel. "Just GO!" he shouted. "QUICKLY!"

Sarah pushed her upper body up and out of the Crown Vic, grabbing onto the window frame of the car next to her. Moving almost like a cat, she lifted her lower body out of Chuck's Crown Vic and shifted into the driverless one –

But almost as soon as she did so, the lack of acceleration from the Crown Vic which she was now in became too much for Chuck to handle. It broke away from Chuck, his Crown Vic shooting off down the road. Sarah's Crown Vic shifted to the side and began to turn, Sarah flying against the corpse in the shotgun seat.

To Sarah's right, John Casey jerked the wheel of his Crown Vic, spinning away from Sarah's Crown Vic and coming to an abrupt halt in a thick stand of juniper bushes on the side of the road. Sarah tried to fight the centrifugal forces that were now sending the Crown Vic sliding down I-40 at an angle, but there was just too much momentum…

Desperately, she reached an arm under the steering wheel. "Come on," she whimpered, pushing her arm to its furthest extent –

Her fingers just barely brushed the brake pedal –

Closing her eyes, Sarah braced herself, and jerked her body toward the driver's seat as hard as she could. The entire palm of her left hand came into contact with the brake pedal, and she pushed down as hard as she could.

The Crown Vic's brakes engaged, and the car's back end snapped around, the old cop car coming to a smoking halt in the middle of I-40.

A mile down the road, the two trucks from Sandia continued toward their destination. Their drivers had never even noticed what was going on.

* * *

**Tempe, Arizona**

Louis Silvestri didn't like being up this early.

However, one of his associates had just brought him some very disturbing information.

"So, wait just a damn minute," he said, a look of disbelief on his face. "You're tellin' me that my niece, my little Jenny, and this little sumbitch that's shtupping her – Carmichael – are FEDS?"

The informant known as Pegasus said nothing, merely confirming the information with a nod of the head. "And, let me get this straight. They go by the names Sarah Walker and Chuck Bartowski."

Another nod.

Silvestri's face went hard, emotion draining from his eyes. "Very well," he said, a steely edge to his voice. "Call Marino, and tell him that once the operation is complete, I want them brought here."

"Yes, sir," the man named Vincent replied. "It will be my pleasure."

* * *

**with Arnold Vosloo as Vincent**


	13. Interlude

Howdy folks.

Okay, so as of today - August 11th, 2009 - it's been a little while since I wrote anything. Here's why.

Over the course of this summer, I took twelve credit hours online from Northern Arizona University. I pulled three A's and a B, which as you can probably imagine, took up a WHOLE LOT of time. During that time, I also spent a week out of town, as a camp counselor. Then, a week ago today, my classes finally ended.

Two days after my summer classes finally came to an end, the senior GM of the hotels I work for was fired, thus adding to my workload. Then, the day after that, my mom had a psychotic breakdown. Now, my mom's fine, and she's going back home today, but still, my life is sort of overloaded right now.

I feel bad about this, because I know where I want to take _Chuck vs. the Con_, and _Chuck vs. the Past_ Reboot, and _In the Valley of the Shadow_, and _Tales from the Sparrow School_. However, I just don't have the time or ability to do much writing right now.

Thanks everybody for reading, and for your support.

The Notorious JMG


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